The Committee to Nuke Elysium

“People here are suffering much more than Egypt or Tunisia but you don’t see it. They keep their mouths shut because they don’t want to be locked up for 10 years,” said a graduate medical student, surfing the web at an internet cafe.

Sitting next to him, a young lady finished updating her Facebook page and chatting with friends online – one of thousands of young Syrians adept at using proxy servers to get around the official ban on Facebook.

Although internet users must register their names with the cafe on a list that can be collected by the police, when asked if she had any concerns over breaking the ban on Facebook the young woman said all her friends do the same thing.