It is easy to forget amid all the mayhem, carnage and brutality in the Syrian conflict today that it was once an inspirational and peaceful mass movement for political change and civil rights. That time seems like an eternity ago, and everything that has transpired since then — all the destruction, murders, beheadings, extremism, barrel bombs, dead children and floods of refugees — could never have been imagined by the people who were its inspiration and its spark, the brave civil activists who started it all.

These activists were predominantly liberal and secular, but hailed from all social and religious backgrounds. They were united by a vision and a noble aim. They espoused the kinds of freedoms and political rights for which most Syrians yearned. The way they were marginalized and ruthlessly hunted — first by the regime and later by the extremist Islamist rebels as secular apostates and the moderates for exposing their crimes — is just one more tragedy in a seemingly endless list that has afflicted this miserable nation.

The civil activists are now a dying breed, hunted into extinction by the malice of those who view them as a threat. In Syria, that means just about anyone with a gun. Most of them are now dead, in jail or have fled the country. Perhaps nothing better highlights their plight than the story of Marcell Shehwaro, the daughter of a respected priest and a well-known opposition civil activist in Aleppo.

Shehwaro has been involved with the anti-regime civil movement since the start of the Syrian crisis, and along with a small group of friends engaged in a number of activities ranging from aid work to organizing protests, online activism to distributing anti-government fliers. After the rebels stormed and took east Aleppo in July 2012, Shehwaro and most of her group left the regime-held west for the newly “liberated” areas, where they continued their work as before, only now with a larger degree of freedom. This situation did not, however, last long.