He risked everything to stand up to Assad, but he never saw the regime fall
As it is7:34 a.mHe risked everything to stand up to Assad, but he never saw the regime fall
Time and again, Mazen al-Hamada risked everything to help his fellow Syrians.
In the first days of the “Arab Spring” uprisings, he took to the streets and called for the overthrow of the brutal regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
For this, he was repeatedly arrested and tortured in the country’s notorious prison system.
He fled to the Netherlands in 2013 and spent the next seven years speaking out about the horrors he witnessed and experienced in prison, hoping to convince world leaders to bring Assad to justice.
Finally, in 2020, he returned home, hoping to persuade the Syrian authorities to release those still behind bars, including his own nephew.
But he was immediately detained upon arrival at Damascus airport and his relatives never saw or heard from him again – until his family identified his body in a hospital morgue on Tuesday.
On Thursday, hundreds of Syrians took to the streets of Damascus for Hamada’s funeral, some for the first time in more than a decade.
British filmmaker Sarah Afshar, a friend of Hamada’s, said: “I was very emotional watching the videos. It’s a relief to see people show such respect for him.” As it is hosted by Neil KÓ§ksal.
“They give him a hero’s burial, that’s what he is. He’s a hero.”
On Thursday, they took part in a mourning ceremony at the funeral of Syrian activist Mazen al-Hamada in Damascus. Hamada, whose body was found in a military hospital by his family this week, was one of the prominent activists who was repeatedly arrested and tortured during the Syrian revolution. He fled to Europe but returned to Syria in 2020 and was detained again upon arrival.
Afshar first met Hameda in 2016 while doing research for a documentary about the regime’s crackdown in the Netherlands. Syria Disappeared: The Case Against Assad.
He said there were no cameras at the first meeting. They just talked. But he knew right away that he wanted it to be the focal point of his film.
“He was incredibly open – more so than anyone I’ve ever spoken to,” she said.
“He was willing to put himself in a vulnerable position, at great cost to himself. But the reason he wanted to do that was really because he wanted the whole world to hear his story, to hear what happened in these prisons. The world to act.”
But the world, he said, let him down.
In the three years since the film’s release in 2017, Hamada has traveled the world with Afshar, meeting with politicians and demanding justice for Assad’s victims.
But what they found, he says, was that governments were willing to look the other way and normalize relations with the regime.
“It made me very angry and it made Maze very angry,” he said. “He was, you know, telling people how horrible and horrible the conditions in these prisons were, and the world wasn’t doing anything about it.”
Why did he come back?
In 2020, Hamada returned to Syria against the wishes of his relatives.
He was assured that he would be safe by the Syrian government. The Washington Post reported on this. But instead, he was immediately detained upon arrival at Damascus airport.
“We can sit here and think, well, why would he do something so risky?” Afshar said. “But the thing is, he really felt like he’d done everything he could in the West.”
Reliving the trauma he received over and over again had a negative impact on his friend Hamada’s mental health Khaled Al Haj Saleh told the Dutch publication 31Mag in 2021..
Saleh said that before returning to Syria, Hamada became angry, pushed his friends away and started posting erratic live streams on social media.
“They were disjointed thoughts about ISIS, the Kurds, Syria and everything else that his tortured mind conjures up,” he said.
It is not known what happened to Hamada after his arrest, which is not unusual in Syria. United Nations considers 100,000 people are missing During the 14-year war, many of them were arbitrarily detained or forcibly disappeared.
Rebels overthrew Assad this week and began the opening of prisons in the country, Hamada’s relatives hoped to be reunited with him.
Instead, they found him dead in a military hospital, his body in such a state that he had been killed only in the last week.
Singing in the streets
On Thursday, Syrians carried his coffin, draped in the Syrian flag, through the streets of Damascus.
While his family and friends were performing funeral prayers inside, the participants of the procession, mostly young people, chanted “We will not forget your blood, Mazen” in front of the mosque.
Others shouted, “We will have our revenge, Bashar. We will bring you to justice.”
Some of the marchers knew Hamada, and some did not. Many held up their black and white photos and shouted the names of their missing loved ones.
Hamada’s brother Saeed told Reuters that he wished Hamada would be released from prison so he could see what was happening in Syria when the Assad government fell.
But now he says that his brother is a martyr.
After martyrdom, we feel happy that we have paid the price of this freedom with blood.
For some, Thursday’s rally and funeral were a symbol of hope for the war-torn country. its future remains uncertain.
Many participants said they last demonstrated in Damascus nearly 13 years ago, before Assad’s crackdown on protesters turned the conflict into full-scale war.
“I couldn’t imagine going to a rally in Damascus in any way, shape or form,” said Mohammad Gulsoom, 32, as he marched with his mother.
Afshar says it would mean the world to Hamada to see the spirit of revolution alive again on the streets of Syria.
“I wish and I hope that where he rests in peace he can see how they honored him, what he meant to them, the fight and campaign for the missing and what will come. justice.”
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