Quote:
When peaceful calls for dignity and reform were met in March 2011 by crushing violence from the outset, the protesters knew what awaited them if they were arrested. Their bravery in breaching the fear barrier even to take part in such demonstrations is beyond admirable. Tens of thousands have gone missing over the past three years, detained in prison, never seen again, or sometimes simply returned to their families in a body bag as a warning, like the mutilated body of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib, early icon of the revolution. Like so many, Hamza was not even demonstrating – he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As the presidential election is held tomorrow in regime-held areas only, Syrians know full well what it means. It is not so much an election – everyone knows the result after all – it is more like a head count of government supporters. To vote for anything other than Bashar al-Assad is to sign your own death warrant and that of your family, and not to vote at all means you are forfeiting your chance of any kind of future in Syria.
Article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/02/syria-election-vote-for-assad-or-else
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2017:
Quote:
Zahira (not her real name) was 45 when she was arrested at her workplace in a suburb of Damascus in 2013. As soon as she arrived at Al Mezzeh Military Airport, she was strip searched, tied to a bed and gang raped by five soldiers.
For the next 14 days, she was raped, or threatened with rape, again and again and again.
During one interrogation, in which she says she was sexually penetrated in “every body cavity”, a soldier filmed what was happening and threatened to show it to her family and community.
Shunted from facility to facility over the course of five months, in addition to repeated brutal sexual violence Zahira was also regularly beaten. One one occasion she was electrocuted and beaten with a hose pipe; on another, tied upside down for over an hour and hit in the face.
Article:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/assad-prisons-women-syria-female-inmate-treatment-conditions-exclusive-life-jails-a7899776.html
