Analysis Of Who Is Protesting In Syria
By Syria Comment - Joshua Landis
I am dismayed by the analysis provided by the anonymous retired diplomat. Below is my response to his argument that only 2% are involved in the protests. By examining many youtube videos of the Syrian protesters, one will conclude the following
1. Most protesters are aged between 18-40 2. 95% of protesters are men.
For the total number of protesters, I am going to use the same estimate provided by the anonymous retired diplomat, i.e. 400,000 protesters. ·
We can safely assume that for each male protester, a female relative of the same age group (wife, sister…) stayed home yet shared the same sentiment of her male relative ( I am going to call them passive female protesters). This makes the number of protesters (active & passive) 780,000.
Its probably safe to assume that the age group (18-40) constitute 35% of the population. This bring the total number of ( Active protesters + Passive-female protesters +their extended families) to 2,250,000… ·
Given the tremendous risk of being shot dead during demonstrations. It is safe to assume that only a % of the disgruntled population would actually go out and protest. I will estimate that only 3 out of each 10 disgruntled male citizens came out to the streets. This brings the total number of Active protesters + Passive-female protesters +their extended families+ scared-to-protest to 7,500,000.
Most protesters are sunni Muslims. Sunni Muslims are 70% of the population, this comes to be 16, 310,000. This means that 46% of sunnis are involved in the protests (active, passive, and scared)
Some people have been inflating the population of Damascus, it is only 1.64 millions. ( see tables) · Aleppo and Damascus (total of 4 millions inhabitants) have not yet participated in the demonstrations.
| Governate | Population* ( in millions) |
| Damscus (City) | 1.648 |
| Damscus (Subrubs) | 1.711 |
| Aleppo | 5.315 |
| Homs | 1.977 |
| Hama | 1.938 |
| Latakia | 1.161 |
| Deir ElZor | 1.511 |
| Hasaka | 1.445 |
| Raquah | 0.903 |
| Swaydaa | 0.46 |
| Daraa | 1.011 |
| Tartous | 1.011 |
| Qunaytira | 0.904 |
| Tartous | 0.446 |
| Idlib | 1.865 |
| Total | 23.306 |
| Population Under 15 years of age** | 40% |
| Population over 65 years of Age** | 3.30% |
| Popoulation between 15 & 65** | 56.70% |
| *المصدر: المكتب المركزي للإحصاء (2008) National census Office | |
| **المصدر: المكتب المركزي للإحصاء (2004) National census Office |
