As It Occurs7:34He risked every thing to face as much as Assad, however he by no means received see the regime fall
Many times, Mazen al-Hamada risked every thing to assist his fellow Syrians.
Within the early days of the Arab Spring uprisings, he marched within the streets and known as for the autumn of President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime.
For that, he was repeatedly arrested and tortured within the nation’s infamous jail system.
He escaped to the Netherlands in 2013, and spent the subsequent seven years talking out concerning the horrors he had each witnessed and endured in jail, hoping to persuade world leaders to convey Assad to justice.
Lastly, in 2020, he returned residence in desperation hoping he may persuade Syrian authorities to liberate these nonetheless trapped behind bars, together with his personal nephew.
However he was detained instantly upon arrival on the airport in Damascus, and his family members by no means noticed or heard from him once more — till Tuesday, when his household recognized his physique in a hospital morgue.
On Thursday, tons of of Syrians took to the streets of Damascus, some for the primary time in over a decade, for Hamada’s funeral procession.
“I received so emotional watching the movies. It is a consolation to see individuals honouring him like that,” British filmmaker Sara Afshar, Hamada’s pal, instructed As It Occurs host Nil Kӧksal.
“They’re giving him a funeral of a hero, which is what he’s. He’s a hero.”
Mourners took half within the funeral procession for Syrian activist Mazen al-Hamada in Damascus on Thursday. Hamada, whose physique was discovered by his household in a army hospital this week, was a widely known activist throughout the Syrian revolution who was repeatedly arrested and tortured. He had escaped to Europe however returned to Syria in 2020 and was once more detained upon arrival.
Afshar first met Hamada within the Netherlands in 2016 whereas researching for her documentary concerning the regime’s crackdown, Syria’s Disappeared: The Case In opposition to Assad.
There have been no cameras throughout that first assembly, she mentioned. They simply spoke. However she knew instantly that she wished him to be a focus of her movie.
“He was extremely open — greater than anybody else that I had spoken to,” she mentioned.
“He was keen to make himself weak, at a terrific value to himself. However the motive he wished to try this was as a result of he actually wished the entire world to listen to his story, to listen to about what was occurring in these prisons, as a result of he wished the world to behave.”
However the world, she mentioned, let him down.
For 3 years after the movie’s launch in 2017, Hamada travelled the world with Afshar, assembly with coverage makers and pushing for justice for Assad’s victims.
However what they discovered, she says, had been governments able to look the opposite method and normalize relations with the regime.
“That makes me actually offended, and it made Mazen actually offended,” she mentioned. “He was, you recognize, telling individuals how appalling and monstrous the scenario was inside these prisons, and the world was doing nothing about it.”
Why he went again
In 2020, Hamada returned to Syria, in opposition to the needs of his family members.
He’d been given assurances from the Syrian authorities that he’d be protected, the Washington Post reports. However, as a substitute, he was detained instantly upon his arrival on the airport in Damascus.
“We will sit right here and assume, nicely, why would he do such a dangerous factor?” Afshar mentioned. “However, the factor is, he actually felt like he had accomplished completely every thing he may within the West.”
After Hamada’s arrest, it is unclear what turned of him, which isn’t unusual in Syria. The United Nations estimates 100,000 people went missing over the course of the 14-year warfare, lots of them arbitrarily detained or forcibly disappeared.
When rebels ousted Assad this week and began opening the country’s prisons, Hamada’s family members hoped they may be reunited with him.
As a substitute, they discovered him useless in a army hospital, his physique in a situation that recommended he had solely been killed up to now week.
Chanting within the streets
On Thursday, Syrians carried his casket, draped with the Syrian flag, via the streets of Damascus.
“We is not going to overlook your blood, Mazen,” the marchers, lots of them younger individuals, chanted exterior a mosque whereas household and pals held funeral prayers inside.
Others chanted: “We’ll get our revenge, Bashar. We’ll convey you earlier than the legislation.”
Among the marchers knew Hamada, and a few didn’t. Many held up black-and-white images and shouted the names of their very own lacking family members.
Hamada’s brother, Saed, instructed Reuters that when Assad’s authorities fell, he wished Hamada can be launched from jail so he may see what was occurring in Syria.
However, now, he says, his brother is a martyr.
“After his martyrdom, we really feel glad as a result of we paid the value of this freedom with blood,” he mentioned.
For some, Thursday’s rally and funeral had been an emblem of hope for the war-torn nation, whose future remains uncertain.
Many members mentioned they final protested in Damascus some 13 years in the past, earlier than Assad’s crackdown on protesters turned the battle right into a full-blown warfare.
“I couldn’t have imagined going out in a rally in any method, form or type in Damascus,” mentioned Mohammad Kulthum, 32, as he marched within the procession along with his mom.
Afshar says it might have meant the world to Hamada to see the spirit of revolution alive once more within the streets of Syria.
“I want and hope that the place he is resting in peace, he can see how they’re honouring him, and what he meant to them and to the battle and the marketing campaign for the disappeared, and to what is going to come — which is the marketing campaign for justice.”
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