Syrian man reunited with library hidden behind a wall for 15 years
A man in Syria has regained access to a collection of more than 100 books that he sealed behind a wall he built himself 15 years ago to protect them from Bashar al-Assad's government.
A man in Syria has finally been reunited with a personal library of more than 100 books that spent the past 15 years hidden behind a wall.
Mustafa Khaled Alwan built the concealing wall himself, sealing away a collection made up of Islamic religious texts, science books and poetry, according to France 24.
The decision to hide the books was not made lightly. Under Bashar al-Assad's rule, keeping such a collection visible could have led to imprisonment or worse. Rather than destroying or discarding the books, Alwan chose to protect them by walling off the space where they were stored, keeping the collection out of sight during any potential search.
Access after a decade and a half
The books remained sealed away for years, inaccessible even to their own owner. Only now, with circumstances in Syria having changed, has Alwan been able to open the hidden space again and recover his collection.
The story illustrates how ordinary Syrians sought to preserve religious, scientific and literary heritage during the Assad era, often accepting considerable personal risk, since such materials could potentially have been used as evidence against them by the authorities.
