There has been much talk about the methods of oppression and torture
in prisons in various countries. Syria is known for its brutality
towards its opponents, and below is a true story to demonstrate this.
A young Kurdish poet who had lived in Syria between 2000 to 2002 managed to travel to Australia,
legally arriving in Australia in November 2003. He stayed for about
three years, and then wanted to travel to Kurdistan to visit his family
and relatives, and from there to visit Syria to see his friends whom
had met during his stay there.
Kurdish poet Fared Makhmouri explained why he chose to pass through Syria:
“During the time I stayed in Syria, before I went to Iran,
I loved Syria as a people and history, and I had built good relations
with many Syrian writers, in particular the Kurdish ones. I had two
years of nice memories in that beautiful community, except for its
harsh regime. I wanted to go back to the places where I had lived and
to meet my friends, and to film in some archaeological locations of
Syrian heritage”.
His camera sent him to detention
Makhmouri is a young man from Erbil in the south of Kurdistan. He is an intellectual and an experienced journalist, and he represents a new generation of poets. He said:
“When I arrived in Damascus
on May 1st 2007 I decided to stay there for few days to film heritage
sires and some of the markets. On 3rd May 2007 I went to Hamidiya
market and its outlying areas. I had my camera and started to film some
scenes like every other tourist did, and it was only a short time
before two civilian men approached me and ordered me harshly to follow
them. When I asked them who they were, and why I should go with them,
they said they were Political Security Services staff, and I would find
the answers to my questions when we arrived at their offices. I had no
choice, but I was sure that I had done nothing wrong, my papers were in
order, I did not assault anybody and I do not have anything to do with
Syrian politics. When arrived at the Political Security Services I
began to discover the dark side of the Syrian regime, and the brutality
that ignores the value of humanity through its unimaginatively
inventive and horrible methods of torture.”
Fared Makhmouri added that during his detention, which lasted about
fifteen days, he was sent to three different prisons, and each was
harder than the last. He was detained in Political Security Services
branch, the State Security building and the Palestine Branch
Intelligence building, and then to the Immigration and Passports
Department where he was released. He had not been subjected to the
torture in that office, but they extorted money from him so that he
could be removed through the Rabiya border control near to Iraq. He paid this money, but despite taking his money they forced him to travel through Ramadi
border control which is controlled in parts by terrorists. He was lucky
to come through with his life when the terrorists stopped the car he
was travelling in on the route towards Baghdad.
Forcing detainees to sleep on top of each other is one of the methods of Syrian Arab torture
Makhmouri said:
“The intelligence officers of the Political Security Services
had creative and malicious methods of torture: painful beating with
cables, punches, hanging by the legs, insults, verbal abuse
and starvation, and food would be full of gravel and sawdust, or with
extra salt or without salt. I lived a life of dirty and brutal torture
which I have not read about in any book.
They threw us into a room so that we were about 70 people in a
small space that did not exceed 4 x 4m. The room had a small metal
window, and we stuck to one to another, hardly able to move. At night
we were forced to sleep on top of each other, so that the first group
of detainees lay on the ground, and other detainees were laying onto of
them to make a second layer. When a person in the first layer wanted to
change his sleeping position, the person above him had to change his
position too. We were subjected to breathing difficulties and the
stench of sweaty bodies, and deadly psychological torment. I suffered a
lot, they did not think of us as being human, we were isolated from the
world, and any objections raised by us were confronted with a lot of
obscene insults that seemed to be well-practiced.”
The life of Kurds is worthless//Arab teenager crammed in with adults
Makhmouri said:
“In the prison where I was detained, I met
many detainees, and in particular Syria Kurds. There was a young
Kurdish man called Gandi who had been arrested for trivial reasons,
e.g. taking part in a demonstration, and he had been held in prison for
12 months without trial. There was also a Kurdish young man, Rakan,
from al-Jazeera area who had been imprisoned on charges of smuggling.
There were a further forty to fifty Kurdish people.
They talk to me about the severity of their incarceration; they said to
me that they were imprisoned for long periods of time underground, in
deep basements, where they were not able to see the sun for three
months. They were physically weakened and had lost their natural skin
colour, and were suffering mental and physical exhaustion. Their hair
had became long, and the smell of sweat was awful as they were not
allowed to wash for a long time. I met a Kurdish movie artist, a young
man from South Kurdistan named Rizgar who was detained with another
young man called Halkawet.
I noted that when you are a Kurd in Syria’s prisons your
suffering is increased, and you are insulted more. The Syrian police
believe that Kurds do not deserve life, however, unusually, an Arab
teenager younger than 15 years was jailed among adult detainees.”
Because he was filming, this means he is a spy!
Makhmouri added:
“My charge was very
serious as it was for spying. Put simply, I had been accused of this as
I had been seen filming, but I was filming the market and minarets. I
could not tell them that I lived previously in Syria as that would
bring more problems. They beat me severely during the investigation,
and insulted me and swore at me. I did not know that they would behave
in this way. Eventually, after some pressure came from abroad and they
could not confirm any of evidence against me, they could not detain me
longer so I was released. ”
I should also mention that I during the time of my
detention, I saw two staff in this service who had some sense of
humanity, but they were fearful of showing their feelings in public. I
could see that they were not happy with what they were doing. I made a
note of the name of one of them, but this has to remain confidential
to protect him.”
Makhmouri said:
“Bribery and extortion are commonly used by
Syrian intelligence services. If you pay a sum of money maybe you can
improve your circumstances a little, but it does not prevent verbal
abuse and beatings. This will be impossible, so if you pay two hundred
dollars for example, they will reduce torture from two hours to an hour
and forty-five minutes, and so on, but this is not fixed, because every
officer or a policeman has his dealing price. The police are defined by
the severity and brutality they use.”
Iraqi Arab poet writes a poem in a praise of Assad then he was released!
The poet Fared Makhmouri added:
“Ironically, a known Iraqi Arab poet, who will remain anonymous, was also detained with us, but he wrote a poem praising President Bashar al-Assad, and then handed it to the intelligence officer. He was very quickly separated from us and freed “.
So, this is the system of protection and defence that the regime
boasts about when describing itself! Using this inhumane destructive
mentality it wants to achieve its supposed national goals, while at the
same time imprisoning its own people, and fighting against humanity.
Abdulwahab Talabani
10January 2010
Source: International Support Kurds in Syria Association
www.supportkurds.org
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