Well-informed sources warned that the personal safety of the former education minister in the opposition’s interim government is in danger, echoing fears of being subjected to the same fate of prominent rights activist Razan Zaitouna, who went missing in Douma city north of the capital in 2013.
Dr. Hoda al-Absi quit her post as education minister after 19 months on Wednesday over mounting pressure by powerful opposition figures who saw that her decisions went beyond their personal interests in northwest Syria.
A couple of such decisions were dismissing the President of Aleppo University, Yassine Khalifa, for employing regime loyalists, as well as banning Interim Minister of Finance Abdel Hakim al Masry from teaching in the universities of the liberated north because of his forged degree.
Al-Absi's resignation was the result of a number of implicit threats that she received after including a history book on the Syrian revolution in the curricula of schools in northern Syria, sources say.
The head of the interim government Abdel Rahman Mustafa’s hasty acceptance of Absi’s resignation and his appointment of Interim Minister of Justice Abdullah Abdel Salem to run the Ministry of Education, surprised many.
The head of the interim government had previously evaded giving any statements to Zaman Al Wasl about his position on introducing the Syrian revolution to school books, ignoring all attempts to communicate with him.
Deputy Minister of Education Fateh Chaaban accused the resigned minister of “hijacking the revolution so to look like a rebel hero.”
Al-Absi explained to Zaman Al Wasl that her decision was to include the hopeful parts of the Syrian revolutions while avoiding controversial topics.
“The main goal is to clarify the main reasons behind the outbreak of the revolution, and to address its ideals and values to familiarize the new generation with it, ten years in, so that they continue to defend its principles down the road,” the minister said. “The revolution cannot be documented in-depth until it triumphs.”
“The history of revolutions does not begin with their uprising,” she continued. “There are deeper causes for revolution and different stages they go through. What we will teach is the path that sparked it, its brightest parts. This will be the first half, the second we will write when our revolution finally triumphs.”
The history book will be included in the curriculum starting the next academic year 2021-2022.
Zaman Al Wasl
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