Everything changed with a knock on the door.

Mohammed Ghalioun was arrested by Syrian security police without a cause provided to his family. For Suhayla Sibaai, a sophomore from Wichita, this type of story is not uncommon.

“I would go over there and it felt like such a safe place to go. You never had to worry about going out,” Sibaai said.

Ghalioun is Sibaai’s friend’s uncle. The family has not heard from Ghalioun or his whereabouts since the arrest.This is the first summer in Sibaai’s memory that she did not spend in Homs, Syria with her friends and relatives.

“Even during the first night of Ramadan they started just going crazy. They were shooting. There are tanks deployed. Several cities like Homs are under complete siege,” Sibaai said.

They’re calling it the Ramadan Massacre because the violence has increased since the beginning of Ramadan earlier this month.

Sibaai’s cousin’s good friend was killed in a random shooting. Deaths are disturbingly common, and, in the past six months, well-documented through amateur videos and internet postings.

“You can go on YouTube and see very graphic videos. You will sometimes see kids and older men bleeding to death,” Sibaai said.

The violence arose in response to protests against the current Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the government. The US Department of State classifies the Syrian government as a republic, under the authoritarian military-dominated Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party.

“Al-Assad and his family are from the Alawite sect, which is a minority sect within Shiaism which is the minority side of Islam within Syria,” Raj Bhala, a Rice distinguished professor of law said.

Al-Assad was believed to be a young reformist when he took power. But his response to the revolution, now known as the Arab Spring, has increased opposition protests. Bhala explained that the revolution began after years of poor living conditions and low job opportunities for the Arab youths.

The protests began in Tunisia when a fruit seller lit himself on fire in protest of police brutality. The revolution grew and spread across North Africa and the Middle East.

The first spark in Syria struck in Daraa, Syria. Khattar Torbey, a juridical sciences doctoral candidate from Beirut explained the Daraa event that led to the mass protests throughout Syria.

“There was some kids that wrote on the walls of their school, ‘Let the dictator fall’. So, they took them, they pulled out their nails and tortured them and then threw them back on the streets,” Torbey said.

The fathers asked the chief of security about what happened to their children. The security chief said that if the men acted out again, that the security forces would kill their wives, explained Torbey.

After protests in Daraa escalated, the Al-Assad regime cracked down with acts of repression, rather than the reforms that the Syrian people had hoped for.

Sibaai explained that the Syrian people are living in fear. When she speaks with her relatives via Skype they tell her they’re positioning themselves in a way so that if a bullet comes through the window it won’t hit them.

Even communicating with her family online is dangerous for Sibaai. The International Press Institute notes that the Syrian government has instituted a crackdown on social media sites. “My family and I don’t think we would be able to get back into Syria unless the regime falls because of how active we’ve been on the net,” Sibbai said.

The Internet is the main tool for revolution leaders across the Middle East when it comes to organizing protests. In Egypt, organizers sent out emails and tweets and started Facebook groups to tell the youth population when and where protests were taking place.

The practice has become standard. In Syria and across the globe Twitter has been used to show support and raise awareness. Opposition supporters started Twitter campaigns using the hashtags #RamadanMassacre and #SyriaBleeds to spread awareness.

The United States issued a travel warning April 25 instructing citizens to depart from Syria immediately. A second warning was issued Aug. 5 reiterating the earlier warning to depart due to the escalating violence against people on the streets.

Six months after the initial killings there is no apparent end to the violence in sight.

“Everyday it seems to be getting worse and worse,” Sibaai said.

Sibaai now believes that the fighting will not end until Al-Assad and his government step down from power and are tried for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court.

However, Bhala points out that any actions against Al-Assad by foreign military powers has already been ruled out. There are fears that if foreign powers intervene it will be counter-productive to the revolution. Bhala says that the Syrian people may be capable of finding a resolution to the conflict before an intervention would.

Since China and Russia, two members of the five-member United Nations Security Council, struck down a resolution to intervene militarily in Syria, the likelihood that a member nation would act on its own is unlikely.

Nonetheless, the revolution continues to escalate with dozens of people dying daily. International organizations have been unable to calculate estimated death tolls because of the level of violence and travel warnings and the evacuation of most foreign citizens.

“I have talked to people from Syria, asking them if they think that it is going to end soon. They really can’t tell. But for sure by next summer, inshallah, it will be done,” Sibaai said.

— Edited by Ben Chipman