Radio Netherlands
Nov 23, 2007
Being afraid for your own safety is one thing, worrying about the safety of your family can paralyse you with fear. This is why some human rights activists in Syria decide to throw in the towel. However, most activists continue to fight for what they believe even if both they and their families face threats, imprisonment and torture.
One evening Husam left a Damascus bar after having had one too many drinks. He took a taxi home and started to chat with the driver, who began criticising Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Husam enthusiastically joined the driver in criticising the president. It was a lot of fun to secretly poke fun at the regime in the taxi, with the windows closed.
Suddenly the taxi took a wrong turn. Husam was taken to a police station, arrested and sentenced to several months in prison for insulting the president.
Human rights lawyer and activist Razan Zeitouneh tells the story in her Damascus home. Many Syrian human rights activists can tell similar anecdotes. Taxi drivers have a reputation for working for the Mukhabarat (the secret police), but your neighbour or fellow student can also turn out to be a secret agent. It is not easy to recognise them, which is why there is so much paranoia in Syria.
Like mushrooms
Syrian human rights activists are used to living in fear. During the regime of former president and dictator Hafez al-Assad many human rights activists were jailed for decades and often tortured. It seemed that things would change when his son Bashir succeeded him in 2000.
The new president promised more freedom and democracy. Human rights activists started to collect petitions calling for more freedoms. They also held demonstrations, and new groups have sprouted like mushrooms. However, the Human Rights Watch organisation reports that in recent years activists have been rounded up in one wave of arrests after another. In 2006, seven young human rights activists were sentenced to up to seven years in jail.
Fear and concern
Razan Zeitouneh, who was arrested last year, says the human rights movement has been paralysed by fear. Her organisation, the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies conducts research into the situation in Syria. Ms Zeitouneh interviewed other human rights activists. She concluded that there were two dominant feelings: fear and concern about those close to you:
"The fear returns every time you're arrested or someone close to you is arrested or tortured. But the fear also gradually fades away. However, concern about your family stays and can paralyse you completely."
It's a tried and tested method of keeping someone under one's thumb. Threatening a member of someone's family is like having the person in the hands of the police.
"You've got to learn to live with the concern, because you never get rid of it. Your first step is to recognise it. You must let it become part of you. And you must understand that there are other emotions. This gives you the perseverance you will need to continue your work."
Practical protection
Human rights activist Ammar Qurabi, former member of an outlawed Syrian opposition party, says he has been arrested six times. On the telephone he proposes to meet in the busy lobby of a hotel in Damascus. Wouldn't he prefer a quieter place? "Why? I'm not afraid!"
In the lobby, Qurabi tells he is no longer allowed to leave the country. He knows no fear, he says with a smile,
"Because the secret services are becoming bored with reading all of my e-mails and reports."
His organisation reports on issues such as women's rights and the Kurdish minority in Syria. Incidentally, Qurabi enjoys a certain measure of protection because of his contacts with Amnesty International, among other organisations. He is known as a good international networker, creating a bit of security for himself. Yet another prison term for Qurabi would be guaranteed to make international headlines.
"Morons"
Some human rights activists possess a remarkable mechanism for self-protection: their sense of relativity. The agents of the Mukharabat? They don't frighten the activists. Most of them are 'morons' anyway, they say, referring to the barely-qualified taxi drivers acting as secret agents.
Even a 30-year prison term is something to be philosophical about, as human rights activist Mustapha demonstrates, pointing at a house as he gets out of a taxi in Damascus.
"See that house over there? That's where a friend of mine lives. He was in prison for 30 years, but he has still got a zest for life. Thirty years, it is terribly long, but you know, you may be tortured at first, but later you spend so much time with your warders, they can't help but becoming your friends. Then it's not so bad."
0 comments:
Post a Comment