I am very honored to host this post by Budour Hassan, a Palestinian anarchist law student living in Palestine. She writes about Nawar Qassem, a Syrian activist who was detained on June 28th by the Assad regime. You can follow Budour on twitter @Budour48.

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Nawar Qassem: Challenging the Discourse of Sectarianism in Syria

It is an arduous task to write about someone you have never met or talked to, but it is even harder to explain how that complete stranger has invaded your thoughts and haunted your dreams.

Nawar Qassem, an incredibly courageous young man from Tartous, has turned into just another number on an endless list of nameless detainees in Syria. I first read about Nawar on Twitter upon his arrest – or abduction, to be precise – by Syrian regime forces from his parents’ house on Wednesday June 28th. Nawar had been shot in the thigh earlier this month and his injury requires a surgery outside Syria. Sounds like a tediously familiar story, doesn’t it?

As desperately as we try to deny it, most of us have normalized mass-killings in Syria. We have lost count of the number of martyred, injured, detained, disappeared and displaced Syrians since the start of the Syrian uprising. In today’s Syria, a day is considered relatively “quiet” if the death toll does not exceed 50.

In today’s Syria, the sudden, painless death by a sniper’s bullet is a luxury many Syrians dream of: before his arrest, citizen journalist Hassan al-Azhari from Latakia said that he preferred death over arrest. But even that was too much to ask. He was arrested and tortured to death.

In today’s Syria, the basic rights of paying farewell to your loved ones, mourning them in peace, and burying them properly are privileges that thousands of bereaved families have been deprived of.

In today’s Syria, having a name is a curse in life and death. Few dissidents afford to reveal their identity out of fear of persecution, arrest and torture. At times, even the dead must remain unnamed since the mere mention of their names may be too great a threat for their families and comrades.

In today’s Syria, martyrs have become numbers flashing across our TV screens and their stories remain untold. Think of the man who was killed a few days before his wedding. Think of the medical students who were shot dead a day before their graduation. Think of the little girl who fled the heavy shelling on Baba Amr only to be murdered along with her entire family in Deir Ezzour.

In today’s Syria, there are tens of thousands of detainees; most of them do not get Facebook pages calling for their release or trending campaigns raising awareness to their plight.

In today’s Syria, only one side bears the burden of proof. And no, it is not the side that has enslaved Syrian citizens for four decades. The oppressed in Syria have to protest, document the protest, get shot and shelled, treat the injured, live-stream the shelling while risking their lives in the process only for couch “anti-imperialists” to reject their reports blithely because they are anonymous peasants who do not have celebrity status or hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers like Tahrir Square’s superstars; because their reports are unsubstantiated; because some of the pictures posted in social media are outdated or unverified which must mean that the entire uprising is fake or exaggerated. It matters not that with so many massacres across Syria, we get virtually identical images of charred corpses and graphic injuries. It matters not that spreading unverified or false photos and news is not by any means exclusive to the Syrian uprising, but rather transpires everywhere including in Palestine; it matters not that the very people demanding utmost accuracy from Syrian protesters in the name of integrity unthinkingly quote sources sympathetic with the Syrian regime.

In today’s Syria, massacres and protests define towns and cities with the stench of death replacing the scent of jasmine.

Why, then, at a time when massacres and mass arrests became a routine, has Nawar Qassem’s story occupied my mind and touched me so profoundly? Perhaps because it challenges the paradigms and stereotypes that have come to characterize the Syrian uprising and dominate the discourse over Syria. Nawar is an Alawite. And it is painful that we are obliged to mention a person’s sect to show that the revolution is not a Sunni insurrection. Nawar is a Syrian Alawite who has been active in the revolution since its outbreak. Nawar has dedicated his time and energy to assist Homsi refugees, working in Tartous, a city that has been a stronghold for the regime. Nawar is a Syrian Alawite non-violent activist meaning that he faces a serious risk of torture and an extremely vengeful, wrathful punishment at the hands of his jailers.

It is precisely because Nawar Qassem does not fit the accepted narrative that you will not hear about him in the media. Writing about a guy from the “minorities”, who is one of many activists working behind the scenes, does not sell copies like the “Sunni market” story. Speaking about solidarity and unity in Syria is not as contentious as publishing Adnan Arour’s disgustingly sectarian statements. Covering the protests of Salamiyeh – a mixed town of Ismailis, Sunnis, and Shia Twelvers, all of whom have been protesting since the very beginning of the uprising as well as aiding the injured and the displaced – does not serve the narrative that “minorities” staunchly support the regime.

By no means am I trying to paint the Syrian uprising as a utopia or as a perfect uprising. It is not. The revolution has indeed been stained by sectarian sentiments and random violence at times. While it is the regime that is chiefly responsible for sowing sectarianism and driving revolutionaries into armed – and at times religious-motivated – resistance after months of largely peaceful protests, sweeping the flaws of Syrian society and the Syrian revolution under the rug is wrong. So, too, is condoning sectarianism and any crimes committed by the Free Syrian Army against civilians.

The Syrian uprising is our window into the Syrian society; after years of being accustomed to viewing the Syrian society through the eyes of the regime, we finally got the chance to see a different, unfiltered Syria with all its flaws, tensions, heroism and accomplishments. Despite the savagery of the Syrian regime and the insistence to portray the revolution as a civil war, acts of sheer courage, creative non-violent resistance and inspiring – albeit criminally under-covered – solidarity shine through amidst the incitement and hate-mongering.

Nawar Qassem was shot and arrested because he shakes the very foundation of a regime built on fear mongering and divide and rule tactics.

The Syrian regime proves again that the clever signs of Kafranbel, the cartoons of Ali Ferzat, the lens of Bassel Shehadeh’s camera and the roaring chant of “The Syrian people are one” pose a much greater threat to its existence than any armed battalion.

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Posted on 07/03/2012 by Juan Cole

(New York) – Former detainees and defectors have identified the locations, agencies responsible, torture methods used, and, in many cases, the commanders in charge of 27 detention facilities run by Syrian intelligence agencies, Human Rights Watch said in a multimedia report released today. The systematic patterns of ill-treatment and torture that Human Rights Watch documented clearly point to a state policy of torture and ill-treatment and therefore constitute a crime against humanity.

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The 81-page report, “Torture Archipelago: Arbitrary Arrests, Torture and Enforced Disappearances in Syria’s Underground Prisons since March 2011” is based on more than 200 interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch since the beginning of anti-government demonstrations in Syria in March 2011. The report includes maps locating the detention facilities, video accounts from former detainees, andsketches of torture techniques described by numerous people who witnessed or experienced torture in these facilities.

“The intelligence agencies are running an archipelago of torture centers scattered across the country,” said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “By publishing their locations, describing the torture methods, and identifying those in charge we are putting those responsible on notice that they will have to answer for these horrific crimes.”

Click to view in-depth, satellite images of the torture centers in the following cities: Damascus,Homs, Idlib, Aleppo, Daraa, and Latakia.

Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to adopt targeted sanctions against officials credibly implicated in the abuses.

The facilities cited in the report are those for which multiple witnesses have indicated the same location and provided detailed descriptions of torture. The actual number of detention facilities used by intelligence agencies is probably much higher.

Almost all the former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had been subjected to torture or witnessed the torture of others during their detention. Interrogators, guards, and officers used a broad range of torture methods, including prolonged beatings, often with objects such as batons and cables, holding the detainees in painful stress positions for prolonged periods of time, the use of electricity, burning with acid, sexual assault and humiliation, the pulling of fingernails, and mock execution. Altogether Human Rights Watch documented more than 20 distinct torture methods used by the security and intelligence services.

In most cases former detainees were subjected to a range of these torture methods. A 31-year-old detainee who was detained in Idlib governorate in June described to Human Rights Watch how the intelligence agencies tortured him in the Idlib Central Prison:

They forced me to undress. Then they started squeezing my fingers with pliers. They put staples in my fingers, chest and ears. I was only allowed to take them out if I spoke. The staples in the ears were the most painful. They used two wires hooked up to a car battery to give me electric shocks. They used electric stun-guns on my genitals twice. I thought I would never see my family again. They tortured me like this three times over three days.

While most of the torture victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch were young men between 18 and 35, the victims interviewed also included children, women, and the elderly.

Human Rights Watch research shows that the worst torture has taken place in detention facilities run by the country’s four main intelligence agencies, commonly referred to collectively as the mukhabarat:

• The Department of Military Intelligence (Shu`bat al-Mukhabarat al-`Askariyya);
• The Political Security Directorate (Idarat al-Amn al-Siyasi);
• The General Intelligence Directorate (Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-`Amma); and
• The Air Force Intelligence Directorate (Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya).

Each of these four agencies maintains central branches in Damascus as well as regional, city, and local branches across the country. In virtually all of these branches there are detention facilities of varying size.

All of the witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch described detention conditions that would by themselves amount to ill-treatment and, in some cases, torture – extreme overcrowding, inadequate food, and routine denial of necessary medical assistance. A graphic model depicting an overcrowded cell described by one former detainee illustrates how the conditions fall short of international legal standards.

Diagrams produced by SITU Studio and Forensic Architecture, an ERC-funded project.

The individuals who carried out or ordered crimes against humanity bear individual criminal responsibility under international law, as do those in a position of command whose subordinates committed  crimes that they were aware of or should have been aware of and failed to prevent or punish. This command responsibility would apply not only to the officials overseeing detention facilities, but also to the heads of intelligence agencies, members of government, and the head of state, President Bashar al-Assad.

Because Syria has not ratified the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, the court will only have jurisdiction if the UN Security Council adopts a resolution referring the situation in Syria to the court. Russia and China have previously blocked Security Council efforts to push for accountability.

“The reach and inhumanity of this network of torture centers are truly horrific,” Solvang said. “Russia should not be holding its protective hand over the people who are responsible for this.”

A table with the detention facilities where torture was documented, along with their respective locations, operating agencies, and commanders follows.

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