Originally published 2020-06-05.
In early June 2020, two Syrian artists, Aziz Asmar and Anis Hamdoun, painted a mural of George Floyd on the wall of a bomb-damaged building in Binnish, a town in Syria's Idlib province. Alongside Floyd's portrait they added the words "I can't breathe" and "No to racism". Painted in one of the most war-battered corners of the world, it quickly became one of the most widely shared images of global solidarity after Floyd's death in Minneapolis.
This article looks at who made the mural, why it resonated, and how it fitted into the wave of protest, sport and social-media activism that spread around the world that summer.
The mural and the artists behind it
George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed on 25 May 2020 when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes. Within days, protests had spread from Minneapolis across the United States and then to more than 60 countries.
In Binnish, Aziz Asmar, then 48, and his collaborator Anis Hamdoun chose a ruined wall for their tribute. Asmar had used the town's shattered buildings as a canvas before, including a mural honouring a Palestinian journalist, and he has said that the location is part of the message. Painting on destroyed walls, he explained to the UAE newspaper The National, is a way of reminding the world that people once lived there and that many died or fled.
Asmar described watching the video of Floyd's death as a painful reminder of children killed in chemical attacks in Syria. "Art is a universal language that anyone can understand," he told The National, adding that people facing injustice should stand with one another wherever they are.
Why a mural in Idlib struck such a chord
The setting gave the image its power. Syria's civil war, which began in 2011 after the government's crackdown on peaceful protests, has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced roughly half of the country's pre-war population from their homes, either inside Syria or abroad as refugees.
Idlib province became the last major stronghold of the armed opposition, dominated by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Between December 2019 and March 2020, a government offensive backed by Russian air power drove close to a million people from their homes there, many into crowded camps near the Turkish border, before a ceasefire agreed by Russia and Turkey in March 2020. When the mural was painted a few months later, Binnish and the surrounding area were still living with daily insecurity.
For many viewers, the idea that people who had endured bombing and displacement would pause to honour a man killed thousands of miles away was deeply moving. The mural also carried an implied argument: that the struggle against police violence in the United States and the struggle of Syrians against state violence were connected, even though their histories and politics differ in important ways.
Art as protest around the world
The Idlib mural was one of many. In the weeks after Floyd's death, murals appeared in cities from Minneapolis to Berlin and Nairobi, and artists across the Arab world produced work linking his death to their own experiences. The National highlighted, among others, Palestinian artist Lina Abojaradeh, who compared the treatment of Black Americans with that of Palestinians, and Lebanese illustrator Nouri Flayhan, whose drawings urged audiences to confront racism in the Arab region too.
Street art is a natural medium for protest. It is public, cheap to make and easy to photograph and share, so a single wall can reach millions online within hours. In places where formal political expression is dangerous, it can also say what speeches cannot.
Footballers join the protest
Sport offered another stage. On 31 May 2020, Borussia Dortmund forward Jadon Sancho scored the first hat-trick of his professional career against Paderborn in the Bundesliga and lifted his jersey to reveal a T-shirt calling for justice for George Floyd. Teammate Achraf Hakimi made a similar gesture after scoring, and other Bundesliga players, including Marcus Thuram and Weston McKennie, made their own tributes that weekend.
First professional hat trick 🙏🏼. A bittersweet moment personally as there are more important things going on in the world today that we must address and help make a change. We have to come together as one & fight for justice. We are stronger together! ❤️ #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/ntOtwOySCO
— Jadon Sancho (@Sanchooo10) May 31, 2020
(This post is no longer available on X.)
Sancho received a yellow card for removing his shirt, as the rules require, but the German football association later decided not to take further action against players who had shown support for Floyd.
In England, where the Premier League had not yet restarted after the Covid-19 shutdown, Liverpool's squad knelt around the centre circle at Anfield during training on 1 June 2020. Other clubs followed, and when the league resumed, players took a knee before matches for the rest of the season and beyond.
Liverpool's squad took a knee at Anfield as a tribute to George Floyd today. pic.twitter.com/0c5qZfJn8n
— B/R Football (@brfootball) June 1, 2020
Blackout Tuesday and the debate over online activism
On 2 June 2020, millions of people took part in Blackout Tuesday, posting plain black squares on Instagram and other platforms. The initiative began in the music industry, launched by executives Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang under the banner #TheShowMustBePaused, as a call to pause business and reflect on racism. Many celebrities and large companies joined in.
It also drew criticism. Activists pointed out that many black squares were tagged with #BlackLivesMatter, burying practical information that protesters were sharing under that hashtag. Others called the trend performative, arguing that a single post cost nothing and changed little unless it was followed by real action, such as donations, voting or changes inside companies.
Actor Emma Watson was among those criticised, after users noticed that her black squares appeared to have been posted in a way that kept the look of her Instagram grid. She reportedly responded by urging white people, herself included, to do more to tackle racism.
What happened next
In April 2021, a Minneapolis jury convicted Derek Chauvin of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter; he was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison, and later received a concurrent 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd's civil rights.
Syria's story also moved on. In December 2024, an offensive launched from Idlib by opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham brought down the government of Bashar al-Assad, opening a new and uncertain chapter for the country and for the millions of displaced Syrians hoping to return home.
The mural in Binnish remains a snapshot of a particular moment, when a death in an American city became a symbol for people living through very different injustices. Whether or not one accepts that all struggles are the same, it showed how readily people who have suffered recognise suffering in others.
Sources: The National (4 June 2020): artworks by Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian artists inspired by George Floyd; Wikipedia: Murder of George Floyd; Wikipedia: Blackout Tuesday; Wikipedia: Idlib. Mural by Aziz Asmar and Anis Hamdoun.
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