Obituary: Raed Fares was shot dead on November 23rd

THE FILM was blurry, and no wonder. Raed Fares had shot it on his Nokia phone, holding it over the gathering of men in the main street of Kafranbel on April 1st 2011. It was the day they broke through the barrier of fear. He could see a few small flags raised, very tentatively, above head-height. They were not the official Syrian flag of red, white and black with two green stars, but green, white and black, with three red stars. The flag of the Syrian revolution. There was anti-Assad chanting going on. Several men were still glancing over their shoulders, jumpily, in case the security forces turned up. It felt unreal; they had not dared to chant in the street for 40 years. A few years later, though, Huriyah (Freedom) Square was hosting crammed, colourful, noisy demonstrations under rivers of the red-starred flag. And this was largely his doing.