Munir al-Rayyes

Munir al-Rayyes was a prominent Syrian newspaper editor and writer. He was born in Damascus in 1901, when it was part of the Ottoman Empire. He studied literature at Damascus University and began working for the Ministry of Education in 1919. He also started writing for the newspapers al-Ayyam (Damascus) and al-Hayat (Beirut). He opposed the French and British colonialism in the region and joined the revolt of Sultan al-Atrash in 1925. He returned to Damascus in 1927 and continued his journalism career. He was a founder member of the League of Nationalist Action in 1933, which aimed to remove foreign influence in the region. He moved to Palestine from 1936 to 1938 to join the Arab revolt against the British Mandate. He then became the director of political affairs at the Damascus police department. In 1945, he founded the newspaper Barada, which he edited until it was closed by the Baath party in 1963. He also supported the Arab nationalist movements in the 1950s and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. He wrote several books, including The Golden Book of Nationalist Revolutions in the Arab East, which documented the history of the Arab revolutions. He died in Damascus in 1992. He was married to Thuraya Al-Hafez, a prominent Syrian feminist and activist.