Yahya Al-Sharbaji was a Syrian pacifist activist from Darayya and a prominent figure of the non-violent movement, co-founder of the Local Coordination Committees. He was arrested on 06 September 2011 by Air Force Intelligence during an ambush aimed at his brother who was seeking medical help, and was subsequently subjected to enforced disappearance and held incommunicado for years. His family later learned through the civil registry that his death had been recorded on 15 January 2013 without any indication of cause or place, raising strong evidence that he was executed under torture. Al-Sharbaji had been engaged in civic activism since 2003 with the ‘Youth of Darayya’ group, organising street cleaning campaigns and anti-corruption activities, and became a symbol of peaceful resistance when he and his companions offered roses and water to soldiers, declaring that he would rather be killed than become a killer. Calls for his release were made as early as 2011, yet it was only in July 2018 that a death certificate was officially handed to his family confirming his killing in detention, along with that of his brother Ma’an, who died on 13 December 2013. His legacy as the ‘man of roses’ remains one of the most striking symbols of Syria’s peaceful uprising.