'They killed us twice': finding loved ones at last among Syria's tortured dead

 

 'Some families say it is better to know and mourn. Others say finally learning what happened is worse than dying themselves.

 Hundreds of victims of Syria’s torture chambers are only now being discovered, thanks to a new effort to identify bodies from tens of thousands of photos smuggled out of Damascus seven years ago. For their families, an image of a broken body with a number tag is all that lies at the end of the quest.

 “They died starved and naked,” said Um Munzer Yaseen, 58, who, after sifting through countless photos of emaciated corpses, finally found her son, Jamil, last month.

 A computer engineer, Jamil had been missing since one night in June, 2011, when he was taken by secret police from the family flat in Damascus. In the picture his mother found of his body, his eyes had been gouged out and his legs were broken.

 “If they had shot my son it would have been better to die with a bullet than go through this hell,” she said in Amman, where she and her husband have found sanctuary since fleeing Syria in 2013.

 Her husband, a doctor, said: “They killed us twice: when they arrested him and took him, and the second time when we saw the pictures.” He asked: “Are we not human?”

 Jamil’s image was among 53,275 photos smuggled on discs and thumb drives out of Syria by a former Syrian army photographer, codenamed Caesar, who fled in August 2013. It was his job to record the deaths in military prisons.



 Caesar in hiding in an undisclosed country out of fear of reprisals against him and his family, some friends said. Now, years after Caesar’s photos first came to public attention, they are back in the spotlight. The toughest U.S. sanctions yet came into force in June for alleged war crimes against the civilian population, under a law named after Caesar.

 President Bashar al-Assad has not commented directly on the Caesar photographs since a 2015 interview, when he dismissed them as “allegations without evidence”.

 The Syrian information ministry and the Syrian U.N. mission did not respond to Reuters emailed requests for comment about the Caesar photographs and evidence of systematic torture.

 Human rights groups believe Caesar’s photos contain images of 6,785 detainees, most tortured to death by the Syrian authorities in the early months of the uprising that evolved into Syria’s civil war, now in its ninth year.

 The state of the tortured, mutilated and starved bodies makes it hard to identify them, said Fadel Abdel Ghani, the Doha-based chairman of a group, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which says it has identified 900 victims so far.

 With the renewed attention, campaigners have launched a new push to identify the dead.

 The images first came to light in 2014, the year after Caesar defected, but after the sanctions were imposed they have been re-released on activists’ social media platforms, giving families a fresh chance to find missing loved ones.



 For Syrian artist and teacher Fida Al Waer, whose 19-year-old brother Mohammad Mukhtar was taken at a checkpoint in Homs in 2012, finding his photo ended hope the family had of seeing him alive.

 “I would see him in my dreams alive and that he would return,” said the young artist, who now lives in a flat in the Lebanese capital. “We mourned him again when the photo was found. We always had hope he would be released.”

 She recalls how the family had implored the young man not to go to an area of the city where demonstrators were protesting against Assad’s rule, in the early days of the uprising when security forces were arresting youths at random at checkpoints.

 “For them, he is just a number. A number is on his forehead. He was just a number.”



 Sara Kayyali, a lawyer and Syria expert at U.S-based Human Rights Watch who has researched the photos, says they make it impossible to deny the systematic use of torture in the Syrian security prison system.

 “They have shown us irrefutable proof the Syrian government had truly detained and tortured thousands who disappeared — and denied they exist — and that it has tortured them to death,” Kayyali said in Amman.

 For Mariam Alhallak, identifying the photo of her son, Ayham, 25, a postgraduate dentistry student abducted on the campus of Damascus University in November 2012, ended years of doubt. She had spent more than 17 months knocking at the doors of every government bureau looking for a certificate of death.

 “Thank God he died early and did not get ... starved until he became a skeleton,” said Mariam from her flat in Berlin.

 A faculty colleague detained with her son and later released told her Ayham was tortured for at least two hours before losing consciousness after being hit on the head with a metal bar, after which the torture stopped.

 He died five days after his arrest, in his colleague’s arms. In Caesar’s photograph of his corpse there was a sticker on his forehead that read: “corpse 320 belonging to detention facility 215”.

 In a camp for displaced people in opposition-held Idlib, 74-year-old Jouriya Ali finally found an image of her son Jumaa, who was taken off a public bus near Qutaifa on the edge of Damascus on his way to work in the capital.

 “I wish I had died and not seen this picture. There is no one who was more caring than him,” the mother said. Every day since he disappeared eight years ago she would glance at the door in fleeting hope he would one day show up.

 “God deprive them of their youth, as they have deprived my son of his youth.” '

No Homeland, No Future: Alawite Youth the Backbone of the Assad Régime

 'The living conditions of the population in areas under the Assad régime control are constantly deteriorating, and their ability to secure daily necessities is becoming increasingly difficult. The régime’s ability to secure energy resources has diminished, as well as its ability to limit the rise of the dollar and foreign exchange rates against the Syrian lira, whose value is falling despite the régime’s “security” and economic measures to prevent its deterioration. With the US administration continuing its suffocation of the Syrian economy and the régime’s economic activities through the Caesar Act, population groups within régime-controlled zones have effectively turned into disappointed and disillusioned communities that have lost all hope for a bright future and are now merely trying to survive.

 In these disastrous conditions, young people are living complex tragedies. In this paper, we try to shed light on a sector of Syrian youth within areas under the régime's control, especially those coming from an Alawite background. We examine their reality and their political positions towards the régime – both in the near and more distant future – in the light of their confusion, their siege by the army, and the fighting that continues to kill them in vain, and the régime’s failure to deliver on its promises to them. The paper is based on field research and investigation conducted by the author, as well as in-depth secret interviews with many young people from different regions of the coastal area and numerous meetings and discussions with those interested in public affairs. It also draws on relevant public studies, research, articles, and investigations as well as material circulated on social media. It is worth noting that the security blockade imposed by the régime on activists and political actors has been a major constraining factor throughout the preparation of this paper.



 The régime reduced compulsory military service from two years to nine months after the March 2011 popular protests in Syria. Shortly after, it discharged two batches of conscripts in August and October 2011 after just a few months of service. Eventually, the régime stopped discharging recruits and kept them in reserve status for several years, where the recruit, or reserve soldier, receives a volunteer's salary of about USD30. At the beginning of 2012, the régime initiated a major reserve forces call-up, which continued for some time and looked more like a general mobilization. At the end of 2018, the régime discharged the first batch of reserves, which was a very small percentage of the total number of young soldiers. Alawite families are among the most committed to military recruitment and reserve service compared to others, making them the most affected by the system's conscription and standby policies. In an approximate statistic, A.M., a political activist from the city of Latakia, says:

 “The issue of the percentage of young Alawite recruits to young Alawite civilians is one of the most important topics I have worked on, but I have not been able to reach accurate figures because of the loss of a large part of the military records of the régime and its reliance on old methods in this matter, as its military records have not been completely automated. However, I was able to get approximate ratios. The percentage of Alawi young people aged 18 to 30 who serve in the army (conscripts, reserves, volunteers) is now between 65% to 75%, and the percentage of Alawi young people aged 30 to 40 who serve in the army is 35% to 40%.”

 In addition to the long period spent by the young Alawis in the army – which may be over seven years for many of them – they face many difficulties with long psychological and physical effects. Indeed, most are on the frontlines of the fighting where they witness the killing and injury of their colleagues, or have themselves been injured, which may cause lasting effects or disabilities. A large segment of them has also witnessed and carried out arbitrary looting and killing of civilians, making them unfit to return to civil life or properly engage in its civil activities. Moreover, young people often suffer from complex psychological crises throughout their years in the army, so they also lose the best years of their lives – when they’re most energetic and optimistic – to a frustrating and often deadly military life.

 Given all this suffering, what then keeps these young men in the army? And why do they not run away and start their lives instead of losing even more years? I will cite here the testimony of a soldier who fled the army three times and was arrested once at a checkpoint, and then sent back to the army after two presidential pardons. Now, he serves as a reserve soldier. He is 30 years old and spent seven years of his life as a soldier or a deserter. Answering our question, he said:

 “I tried to escape several times and spent nearly two years at my family’s house in the coastal village. For two years, I could not leave this impoverished little village, hiding from death, from my neighbours, and the police. The years were slipping through my fingers ... What do you think a young man of my age would do if he were confined in his house? My family's home turned into a prison, so I took a risk and left for Tartus to work, love, and live my life, and the result was that I got arrested. At least now I can breathe a sigh of relief during vacations, and I can also wait for news of my discharge.”

 Another soldier who has now spent nine years in mandatory service says:

 “Nothing stops me from escaping other than the fear of arrest, imprisonment, torture, and ill-treatment. I do not care about winning the war, nor a homeland for the big “crisis” mongers, nor supporting anyone. I only wish for this nightmare to end.”

 Owning property and finding a job are critical factors in young people's lives. In a country with a severe economic crisis, the economy’s ability to provide jobs for discharged soldiers and officers cannot be predicted or relied upon. Even if employment opportunities are available, they are in fact unemployment in disguise: public and private workers are now paid below USD25 per month. In the private sector, employees have to work long hours for a wage of no more than USD20. With the relatively high cost of living, the average Syrian family needs at least USD150 a month to meet their daily needs. The crisis is now a matter of food insecurity, even for those who work. With the lack of jobs, the situation is dire for these discharged young people. Owning a property – a necessary step to start a family – remains a far-fetched dream for young people in the regions under the régime's control. Property prices have also risen along with the dollar, though at a slower rate, and have become very expensive. Any apartment in a suburban area would cost about USD10,000. Although the régime’s banks are offering mortgage loans, they are still not nearly enough to buy a house, and their long-term premiums seem impossible to pay: a 5m Syrian Lira loan will cost the borrower an additional 90,000 Syrian Lira over 15 years, which seems impossible in a country with a per capita income of not more than 80,000 Lira for all workers in both private and public sectors.

 A young man discharged from military service will, therefore, face difficulties in finding a job. If he manages to find one, he will face difficulties to meet the needs of a medium-sized family or secure a property. These are all factors that make the régime think twice before discharging young people, as it would effectively be releasing an army of frustrated people in its cities and villages.

 Militarization does not only ruin the lives of the youth enrolled in the military, but it also acts effectively as a death-trap for young generations, waiting for them to reach 27 years of age (for university students) or 18 (for non-diploma holders). Even after demobilization, the ghost of military service still haunts Syrian youth. Below are some of the most prominent phenomena imposed by militarization and the ongoing war on the young generation of Alawites.

 We’re talking here about the migration of the Alawite youth, not mass immigration and forced displacement from which the Syrian people have suffered, and are still suffering, due to the ongoing war in the country. Alawite youth migrate from environments that probably have not been subjected to bombing or famines; they migrate from environments that are still safe from the direct negative impacts of the war. The phenomenon of the Alawite youth migration is mainly a result of two issues: first, the lack of practical and economic perspectives in the country, and second, the need to escape the compulsory military service that represents the greatest concern of the Alawite youth with no solutions in sight. To them, military service seems like an uncertain fate that could ruin their lives or waste long years, in which youth would otherwise spend on building a normal future for themselves.
Drug addiction

 The drug addiction has now taken hold among the military and the pro-régime militias fighting in the war as a result of the chaos spread amongst the fighters. This led to the spread of weed consumption among the Alawite fighters and pushed them into the pit of drug abuse. Moreover, occasionally the consumption of pills known as Captagon has also spread among the fighters, and has sometimes been encouraged by security officials. Those pills help the fighters avoid feeling pain, as well as energize and empower them for two whole days, effectively boosting their efficiency on the frontlines. Iran, the Lebanese Hezbollah, and pro-régime warlords have worked on growing weed and spreading its use amongst fighters, including Alawite youth. We conducted several confidential interviews with some of the drug users, and here we will cite the answer we got from (H.A) who is a former member of the National Defence Militia and fought with Hezbollah militia in Al-Nabek and Qalamun. He said:

 “Hezbollah fighters used to listen to “Latmiyat” (a style of the Shite religious songs), drink tea, and smoke weed every time they had a rest. They used to insist that we join them in that ritual, and they protected us in case we were arrested by some security officials or policemen for the possession of weed. They always said that we shouldn’t worry because they would always be there for us and that no security or police officer could bother us if we consumed weed.”



 Hafez al-Assad managed to delude the Alawites into thinking that he dedicated the state’s capabilities to serve them and that he worked tirelessly to raise their status. Before Hafez came to power, the Alawites suffered from neglect and at times, threats. Then, they became the beneficiaries of the régime and rose to the status of authority, particularly among the ranks of the army, police, and security forces. This enhanced the value of the al-Assad family among the Alawites and eventually, the name of Hafez al-Assad was generally revered all over the Alawite areas. That is why Bashar al-Assad, as a successor to his father, enjoys a special status among the Alawites. Moreover, Bashar al-Assad’s position was further enhanced among Alawite youth following the relative economic prosperity experienced before the revolution, with Alawite youth rushing to defend the régime and what they gained during the forty years preceding the outbreak of the revolution. However, the course of events did not go as al-Assad had wished, as Alawite youth paid a heavy price for nine years, during which they gained nothing except death, injuries, disorientation, and absolute poverty.

 Activists estimate that the death toll of the Alawite youth is close to 100 thousand and 60 thousand injuries. They now face the renewed threats they have historically been subjected to as a minority and are losing trust in the role of the régime to protect them during the next stage. This is especially so after Alawite officers lost their prestige due to the interference of Iranian militias and the Russian forces. With the clear messages sent by the Russians to the Alawites and to the world of how Bashar Al-Assad has become their obedient servant, the Alawites have a strong feeling that the régime is now dependent on the Russians and that the countdown for the days when they enjoyed power and authority has started.

 The younger generation of Alawites is trying to earn a living or is counting the days to be discharged from the military service. They do not care about the régime, Bashar al-Assad, or the future of the country, and also remain unconcerned about the next president as long as they maintain the status quo or improve it a little bit.

 This is the case for a significant part of Alawite youth. The rest are sons of army officers, senior officials, and tycoons who are still dreaming of the revival of the régime and regaining power. They are an opportunist class who has become increasingly alienated from Alawite society and its general concern.

 (F.M.) an anti-régime Alawite political activist and a former prisoner of conscience says:

 “At the outbreak of the revolution, Alawite youth rushed to save and defend the Syrian régime. The barriers of self-organized vigilante groups spread at the crossroads of the villages, as large numbers of Alawites volunteered. Many of them had also served in the so-called qualitative reserve forces, where some went to recruitment divisions and handed over their civilian identification cards. According to Alawite communities, it was disgraceful for anyone to dodge conscription or calls to join the reserve forces. Indeed, some Ba'athists even took it upon themselves to draw up blacklists of residents in their neighbourhoods whose loyalty was questionable, so that Syrian Shabiha "militias" could beat them up and force them out of their homes and villages. However, now – and it is a strange paradox – it has become normal for someone in the Alawite community to say that he had made his son flee abroad to dodge conscription, and to have everyone agree with this decision. Moreover, people race to congratulate anyone who was discharged from military service or to cover up for an army deserter. A gradual shift in the viewpoint took place over the past nine years, and for many reasons.”

 In another testimony, (D.Kh.), the civil activist and anti-régime Alawite says:

 “We used to hear the hail of bullets in the Alawites villages and neighbourhoods when one of them joined the army; friends cheered up and the villages and neighbourhoods were abuzz with joy and pride… mothers got jealous of other women's sons. As years passed, we now hear the hail of bullets upon the death of someone as a martyr. Some congratulate the martyr's family; others find pride in martyrdom. The bullets are joined with the waiting of women, the fears of mothers for their sons on the frontlines, and the worrying of fathers. Now when we escort the martyr to his final resting place, silence and grief loom large, and nothing can console the victim's family. Neither the homeland nor the future is ours – rather, we hear cursing pouring on army officers and Bashar al Assad. Whenever we hear the sound of bullets, we know that someone was discharged from the army: the mothers ululate in joy, their friends hold parties, and the rest dream of the same fate for their sons when they hear “wish you the same.”



 A striking development has occurred among pro-régime Syrian youth, particularly Alawites, in their stand towards the régime and the al-Assad family. During the first days of the revolution, they rushed to feverishly defend the régime. Today, the voices of the youth who do not cling to the authority of al-Assad and do not see him as a solution are increasing. Many young Alawites are prioritizing their living conditions and believe that the régime is corrupt, responsible for all the successive crises that have been affecting Syrians, including youth, and incapable of finding solutions to any of them.

 However, it is hard to determine the prevalence of such discontent, due to their entrenched fear of the security apparatus. What is clear is that all the opposition forces must work on a comprehensive national project that puts Syrian youth from different backgrounds on track to employment and a viable life, as well as work to end a war that is severely affecting Syrian youth on both sides of the conflicting parties, as the youth always bear the bigger burden.'