Fadwa Souleimane

Soliman also delivered impassioned monologues to camera, calling for peaceful protests to continue across the country until Assad was overthrown. “Sectarian violence in Homs would be worse if it weren’t for Fadwa Soliman,” says Peter Harling, Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group, the think tank. “She has tried to contain the damage among Alawites who have been hijacked by the regime.”

On August 17, 2017, Soliman died of cancer in exile in Paris, aged 47.

Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011, Soliman was one of the few outspoken actresses against Assad's government. Knowing her fate could be death or prison, Soliman wanted to participate in the demonstration to dispel what she said was public perception that all in the Alawite community, which comprised around 10 per cent of the Syrian population, supported the government of fellow Alawite Bashar al-Assad. She also wanted to dismiss the government's narrative that those who participated in protests were either Islamists or armed terrorists. She appeared at rallies demanding Assad's removal, sharing the podium with soccer star Abdelbasset Sarout, one of a number of other Syrian celebrities who backed the revolt.

In one video message in 2011, Soliman said security forces were searching Homs neighborhoods for her, and beating people to force them to reveal her hiding place. She cut her hair short like a boy, and moved from house to house to evade capture. In 2012, she fled with her husband via Lebanon and moved to France, where they resided in Paris.

Fadwa Souleimane (also transcribed as Fadwa Soliman or Fadwa Suleiman; 17 May 1970 – 17 August 2017) was a Syrian actress of Alawite descent who led a Sunni-majority protest against Bashar al-Assad's government in Homs. She became one of the most recognized faces of the Syrian Civil War.