Mazen al-Hamada: Difference between revisions
Birth date |
|||
| Line 34: | Line 34: | ||
== Return to Syria and forced disappearance == |
== Return to Syria and forced disappearance == |
||
After feeling neglected by the Dutch asylum system, Hamada decided to try to return to Syria. This decision was incomprehensible to his relatives and people who have met him.<ref name="waspost-sly" /> |
After feeling neglected by the Dutch asylum system, Hamada decided to try to return to Syria. This decision was incomprehensible to his relatives and people who have met him.<ref name="waspost-sly" /> Becoming homeless in the Netherlands is said to have been the final push Hamada needed to make his return. |
||
According to his friends and family, Hamada suffered a lot, both physically, from the consequences of torture and psychologically, both from not having a future and not being able to testify against the Assad regime in court. Hamada also was demoralized because he felt his many testimonies, interviews, and demonstrations had little effect for the people still detained in Syria. Hamada also had significant financial problems. Eventually Hamada cut himself off from friends, and felt that he could not find a therapist who seemed to understand what he had been through.<ref name="waspost-sly"/> |
According to his friends and family, Hamada suffered a lot, both physically, from the consequences of torture and psychologically, both from not having a future and not being able to testify against the Assad regime in court. Hamada also was demoralized because he felt his many testimonies, interviews, and demonstrations had little effect for the people still detained in Syria. Hamada also had significant financial problems. Eventually Hamada cut himself off from friends, and felt that he could not find a therapist who seemed to understand what he had been through.<ref name="waspost-sly"/> |
||
Revision as of 20:50, 11 December 2024
Mazen al-Hamada | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | July 3, 1977 |
| Disappeared | February 23, 2020 (aged 42–43) |
| Died | c. (aged 47) |
Mazen al-Hamada (Arabic: مازن الحمادة; July 3, 1977 – c. December 2024) was a Syrian activist from Deir ez-Zor.[1] Hamada was imprisoned and tortured for more than a year and a half for participating in anti-government protests in the context of the Arab Spring in 2011. After being exiled from Syria, he became an asylum seeker in the Netherlands where he publicly testified to the abuse he suffered. In 2020, Hamada became the victim of enforced disappearance, when he was arrested by Syrian intelligence at the airport upon his return to Syria. His body was found in Sednaya Prison in December 2024.[2]
Biography
Hamada was a graduate of the Institute of the Petroleum Industry,[citation needed] and worked as a technician for the French multinational oil and gas company Schlumberger.[3]
He took part in demonstrations calling for more freedom and democracy, and decided to film these events with his phone.[3] Hamada was arrested for the first time on April 24, 2011, by regime intelligence services.[4] He was released a week later. After a second arrest on December 29, 2011, and after two weeks of detention in the same branch, he decided to leave for Damascus.[5][better source needed]
Arrests, imprisonment, and torture
In March 2012, Hamada attempted to smuggle 55 packages of baby formula to a suburb of Damascus. Soon after, he and his two nephews were arrested. They were brought to the branch of the air force intelligence service of Mezzeh Military Airport. Hamada's two nephews would later die in detention.[1][4] Two weeks after the arrest, he was detained "in a small hangar, a little more than forty feet long and twenty feet wide"[1] with 170 other prisoners.[6]
Under torture, Hamada was forced to confess to charges of being a terrorist, possessing weapons, and the murder of regime soldiers. When he refused to confess, agents were called to come and torture him. He was beaten and suspended by the wrists. To alleviate his suffering, he agreed to sign a forced confession, admitting that he possessed a weapon to protect the demonstrators, but he refused to admit having committed any crimes. He was then transferred to another interrogation room, where he was undressed and sexually abused. After this torture he signed all of the documents.[1][7]
At the beginning of 2013, he was ill and taken to military hospital 601, nicknamed by other detainees as a "slaughterhouse". In transit to the hospital, Hamada was physically assaulted. He was told to forget his name, and was assigned the number "1858". There he saw detainees tortured to death, corpses piling up in the toilets and hospital staff beating patients to death. Hamada begged the doctor to be returned to detention.[1][6]
Back at Mezzeh airport, he was treated for a month by a detained doctor, before being transferred to the Qaboun military police on June 1, 2013, and then to Adra Prison on June 5, 2013, where he remained for about two months.[citation needed] Mazen eventually was taken to the anti-terrorism court,[1] which ordered his release on September 3, 2013.[citation needed]
During his imprisonment, which lasted one year and seven months, Hamada was violently tortured. He suffered physical, mental, and sexual abuse, and sustained permanent physical and psychological injuries from his detention in regime prisons, including genital injuries that made having children impossible.[7][8]
Exile
After his release, Hamada was still wanted by the intelligence services. He therefore decided to leave Syria and applied for asylum in the Netherlands.[8]
Return to Syria and forced disappearance
After feeling neglected by the Dutch asylum system, Hamada decided to try to return to Syria. This decision was incomprehensible to his relatives and people who have met him.[7] Becoming homeless in the Netherlands is said to have been the final push Hamada needed to make his return.
According to his friends and family, Hamada suffered a lot, both physically, from the consequences of torture and psychologically, both from not having a future and not being able to testify against the Assad regime in court. Hamada also was demoralized because he felt his many testimonies, interviews, and demonstrations had little effect for the people still detained in Syria. Hamada also had significant financial problems. Eventually Hamada cut himself off from friends, and felt that he could not find a therapist who seemed to understand what he had been through.[7]
Hamada wanted to help the Syrians still detained, and he felt powerless to improve their situation. He seems to have been approached by people from the Syrian embassy, close to the Assad regime, and to have been lured back to Syria with promises of releasing detainees.[7] Hamada wrote that he was ready to sacrifice himself to save others.[citation needed]
Hamada went to Berlin where he obtained a Syrian passport and visa from the embassy.[7] Upon his arrival at Damascus airport on February 23, 2020, Hamada was apprehended by the regime's security services.[7][9][10]
Hamada's body was found on 9 December 2024, after opposition forces from the Free Syrian Army took control of Sednaya Prison during the Fall of Damascus.[11] Hamada is believed to have been executed a few days before the discovery of his body, which had extensive signs of torture and beatings.[12][13][14]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f Taub, Ben (April 11, 2016). "Exposing Assad's War Crimes". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Retrieved December 21, 2021.
- ^ "Watch: Mazen al Hamada describes being tortured by Assad regime - he was later murdered". Sky News. Retrieved December 11, 2024.
- ^ a b Bussard, Stéphane (March 5, 2021). "Mazen al-Hamada, un tragique destin syrien". Le Temps (in French). ISSN 1423-3967. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
- ^ a b Bussard, Stéphane (March 14, 2017). "Le combat de Mazen, digne survivant de la dictature syrienne". Le Temps (in French). ISSN 1423-3967. Retrieved December 21, 2021.
- ^ "Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria - The Testimony of the Detainee: Mazen Besais Hamada On Air Force Branch-Mazzeh Military Airport". www.vdc-sy.info. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
- ^ a b Cluzel, Thomas (March 17, 2017). "La Syrie, une salle de torture". France Culture (in French). Retrieved December 21, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g Sly, Liz (March 4, 2021). "He told the world about his brutal torture in Syria. Then, mysteriously, he went back". Washington Post. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
- ^ a b Mohammad, Linah (March 29, 2021). Where is Mazen al-Hamada?. Washington Post. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
- ^ "Re-arrest of former detainee Mazen al-Hamada". Syrian Human Rights Committee. February 24, 2020. Archived from the original on November 5, 2021. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
- ^ "What's Happened to Mazen Hamada?". The Syrian Observer. February 25, 2020. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
- ^ "Israel bombards Syria as opposition seeks to form a new government". Al Jazeera. Retrieved December 10, 2024.
- ^ "Syrian activist Mazen al-Hamada found dead in Saydnaya prison with signs of torture". The New Arab. December 10, 2024. Retrieved December 10, 2024.
- ^ "Syrian activist whose suffering became symbol of Assad brutality found dead in Sednaya prison". The Guadian.
- ^ "Mazen al-Hamada, symbol of Syrian regime's brutality, confirmed dead". Washington Post.