Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Yassin al-Haj Saleh (born 1961) is a Syrian writer and leftist political dissident. He writes on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the Arab world.
Also recorded as Ḥāǧ Ṣāliḥ, Yāsīn al-
Yassin al-Haj Saleh

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- Name
- Yassin al-Haj Saleh
- Born
- 1961
- Birthplace
- Raqqa, Syria
- Education
- University of Aleppo
- Occupation
- writer, political dissident
- Spouse
- Samira Khalil
- Nationality
- Syria
- Known for
- Bi-al-khalāṣ yā and shabāb
- Honours
- Prince Claus Award · Kurt Tucholsky Prize
- Languages
- Arabic
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Yassin al-Haj Saleh (born 1961) is a Syrian writer and leftist political dissident. He writes on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the Arab world.
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Authority files
wikidata · Q517716 · wikipedia · Yassin al-Haj Saleh
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Yassin al-Haj Saleh • Born — 1961 • Birthplace — Raqqa, Syria • Education — University of Aleppo • Occupation — writer, political dissident • Spouse — Samira Khalil • Website — www.yassinhs.com
Life and career
Life and career
From 1980 to 1996, he spent time in prison in Syria for his membership in the left-wing opposition group Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau), which he calls a "communist pro-democracy group". However, he has also stated that his time in prison allowed him to break out of the "internal prisons [of] narrow political affiliation [and] rigid ideology" and has called the Syrian revolution an "open-ended and multi-leveled struggle", while remaining supportive of aspects of Marxism. He was arrested while he was studying medicine in Aleppo and spent sixteen years in prison, the last in Tadmur Prison. He took his final examination as a general medical practitioner in 2000, but never practiced. In addition to being known for his own published books and articles, he also helped launch the bilingual publication AlJumhuriya.net (est. 2012), lauded by journalist Kim Ghattas as "an online Arabic news platform that is one of the best sources of information and analysis in the region." He was one of the speakers in a two-day anti-capitalist forum, which was held in Ankara, Turkey, on November 23-24, 2013. Additionally, he was speaking at the event 'Reporting Change - Stories from the Arab region' in Amsterdam on 15 June 2014, an event jointly organized by Human Rights Watch and World Press Photo. Al-Haj Saleh is married to Samira Khalil, a communist dissident, former political detainee and revolutionary activist who was abducted in Douma in December 2013. After 21 months of hiding in Damascus and the rest of Syria for being wanted by both the government and radical Islamist militants, he fled to Turkey and lived in Istanbul until 2017. Al-Haj Saleh is now a fellow at Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
Accolades
Accolades
He has been granted a Prince Claus Award for 2012 as "actually a tribute to the Syrian people and the Syrian revolution. He was unable to collect the award as he was then hiding among the Syrian underground. He was awarded the Swedish Tucholsky Prize in 2017.
Works
Works
One of the most influential Arab writers and dissidents as well as a prominent intellectual voice of the Syrian revolution, Yassin Al-Haj Saleh writes on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the rest of the Arab world for several Arab newspapers and journals outside of Syria, and regularly contributes to the London-based Al-Hayat, the Egyptian leftist magazine Al-Bosla and the Syrian online periodical The Republic. Among his books (the majority in Arabic): • Syria in the Shadow: Glimpses Inside the Black Box (2009, Dar Jidar); • Walking on One Foot (2011, Dar al-Adab, Beirut), a collection of 52 essays about Syrian affairs, written between 2006 and 2010; • Salvation O Boys: 16 Years in Syrian Prisons (2012, Dar al-Saqi, Beirut); • The Myths of the Latters: A Critique of Contemporary Islam and a Critique of its Critique (2012, Dar al-Saqi, Beirut); • Deliverance or Destruction? Syria at a Crossroads (2014, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies); • The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy (2017, Hurst Publishers, London) [In English].

"UAM, abril 2018"
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Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1961
Yassin al-Haj Saleh was born in 1961 at Raqqa.
Places
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Places
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- Berlin
Named but not plotted · 1
Raqqa.
Birth place
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q517716: Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Reputable secondary · Wikimedia Foundation
- “Yassin al-Haj Saleh”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
scholarly publication
- Genocide in Syria, Gaza, and Beyond: An interview with Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Journal of Genocide Research, 2025
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2025
References
Citations
References
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scholarly publication
Genocide in Syria, Gaza, and Beyond: An interview with Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Journal of Genocide Research, 2025Crossref registry
Verifiedreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q517716: Yassin al-Haj SalehWikimedia Foundation
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
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Further particulars
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Yassin al-Haj Saleh is recorded as having received Prince Claus Award and Kurt Tucholsky Prize.
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