Torture.
It isn’t a small thing or something to be laughed off and shrugged aside.
It’s real.
And this regime uses it.
They don’t use it sparingly, they don’t use it in ticking timebomb situations, they don’t use it for the perpetrators of awful crimes.
They use it for every day purposes. A run-in with the police means a probable beating. For small things. It is routine, it is normal.
It is what all of us expect. It is why we keep our nails as short as possible so they can’t be pulled off. It is why we were slow to come out into the streets. It is why there’s little crime here. It is why you don’t see so many women in the protests.
What do you think happens to women who get picked up?
This clip shows some protesters – not leaders, not organizers, just ordinary Syrians who went out in the street and asserted the unity of the Syrian people and their desire for a freer society – who were taken and released. This is the minimal one can expect:
That is Banias.
We all know this; it is how it has always been. The ones who stuck their heads up got hammered down. My uncle way back in 1976 spoke out about the regime, wrote a few things, spoke too publicly. They took him away. Beat him savagely. He returned with broken bones. They took him again to Tadmor the second time. He was gone longer and came back with only one eye. He left the other one with them and thanked God he was one of the lucky ones for he did get released and did see his children again.
He fled to the USA and we followed.
I remember sleeping in the same house as him and waking up to hear screaming; my cousins telling me to go back to sleep, dad does that sometimes when he dreams he’s back there.
And they knew that their father was a lucky one who could have strings pulled on his behalf and live to breathe another day.
Our whole country is full of people with uncles like mine. We know what waits. And knowing that is why we need for it to end.
We have all seen them, the broken men who are the lucky ones, the ones with scars and limps who scream in the night. And there are the ones who never have been released and maybe died long ago, Or maybe they still live.
Why?
The regime lives on fear. I am only half-joking when I wonder whether years ago they found al Hazred’s lost manuscript and, following the Kitab al Azif, must inflict pain to rouse their black god in subterranean temples beneath lost cities …
It would make more sense.
I am lucky; I have never been tortured. Yet. They have arrested close to 10,000 so far … and those that come back bear the marks of the torturer.
They mean it as a warning.
A warning to us.
But it is also a reminder to us of why we fight.
We want to see an end to this, an end to hearing screams in the night. And we cannot stop until we win because this is what awaits us all.
4 comments:
(please excuse my approximative English) It's just revolting... I read some articles of this blog with the help of Google Translate, it's interesting, because it gives an inside view of this situation ; I find the link of this blog on the website of a French newspaper. I wish you the best, for you and all for you and all those who hope more freedom in Syria...
*Hem, sorry, I wanted to say "for you and all those who hope more freedom in Syria", obviously.
What strikes me most is the loneliness factor.
Where do the Syrians go for support? To what other nation in the region can they turn to who will stand with the?
We watch the events unfold on TV, as if it were regularly scheduled entertainment, with a defined beginning and a defined end.
In fact, were are watching experiences. They differ from events in that they have a continuing and long lasting effect. What we see on TV is predigested for family viewing and designed to elicit a response devoid of context.
What struck me most were the words you used-
"It is what all of us expect. It is why we keep our nails as short as possible so they can’t be pulled off. It is why we were slow to come out into the streets. It is why there’s little crime here. It is why you don’t see so many women in the protests.
What do you think happens to women who get picked up?"
This says more about the Syrian reality than any video on torture or evening newscast. These are the realities that need to be broadcast.
You describe experiences, not events. Too few realize that, really.
As Micah said, its positively revolting the way governments can treat their people sometime. I really hope these protests get rid of al-Assad. He deserves nothing less.
Though for you...I really love your blog, but please don't let it jeapordize your safety, OK? I most certainly would rather this website not be updated, or you go to Lebanon or somewhere, than you go through...what you described in that post.
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