Defiance

Loubna Mrie was raised a staunch Syrian Alawite, the same sect as then President Hafez al-Assad. Her mother's father helped plan the coup that saw Hafez seize power in 1970 and bring the Alawites out of hiding and into a position of total control. Her father was intimately involved in Hafez's government as an enforcer and assassin. When the Arab Spring reached Syria in 2011, she attended a protest against his son Bashar's government out of curiosity and her life changed forever. When she returned to her grandparents' home in Damascus, her family called her a traitor. Unable to look back, she plunged ahead into a life of activism - in opposition to both the regime and her abusive father - with unimaginable consequences. Loubna's father was exiled, her mother murdered and her boyfriend, Peter Kassig, an American, was executed by ISIS. This memoir will tell her story in her own words.