Mai Skaf laid to rest in Paris

Syrian actress and activist Mai Skaf was buried on Friday (August 3) in a cemetery in a suburb in Paris, surrounded by family members and friends, carrying flags of the Syrian revolution.

The burial was delayed due to forensic investigation into the cause of the death by the French police, as she was found dead on July, 23, aged 49, in her flat in Paris.

Her friends took to social media to post the funeral and pay tribute to her.

“She was the one who always chanted and shouted for Syrian people in the streets of Paris: Do not give up. Don’t let the regime win. They are weak. We are the strong. I believe in Syria. Syria belongs to the great people of Syria, not to the Assad family,” her colleague Jihad Abdo said.

Skaf was jailed, and repeatedly harassed after joining peaceful demonstrations against the Assad regime beginning in 2011. Fearing further retaliation — she received death threats — she escaped to Jordan and then continued to Paris, where she had been living since 2013.

When she was interrogated after one arrest, she said, an officer demanded: “What do you want? Do you want freedom?” To which she said she replied, “My wish is that my son will not be led by the son of Bashar Assad!”

The last post she shared on her Facebook page before her death was: “I will not lose hope, I will not lose hope. It is the great Syria, not Assad’s Syria.”