Prisoners of Assad: What Syria's Detainees Are in for

  • Share
  • Read Later
Anwar Amro / AFP / Getty Images

Lebanese women whose loved ones have been missing since the 1975-1990 civil war, including some believed to be held in Syrian prisons, demonstrate on April 11, 2011 in Beirut.

(2 of 2)

But apart from the testimony of family members still secretly visiting their loved ones and from former detainees, there is precious little documentation to prove the existence of these prisoners, largely, according to activists, because the Syrians retain all paperwork. That's something that Lebanese authorities have used to avoid the issue. "What really upsets you is that your government is against you, not supporting you, because it's too sensitive an issue to raise with the Syrians," says Sonia Eid, a diminutive mother of four. Eid's son Jihad was detained along with the rest of his Lebanese Army unit by Syrian troops on October 13, 1990 after they overran his barracks in Beirut in one of the last battles of the Lebanese civil war.

Jihad was just 20 when he was captured. His mother says she knows he is in a Syrian jail, because she saw him in one back in 1991. That was a high point in Eid's fight to free her son. So too was 2005, when Eid was hopeful that the issue of detainees would finally be resolved after the Syrian military withdrawal. "But we were disappointed, because nothing happened," she says.

Aad says he feels betrayed by the anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians, who he says talked a good talk, but ultimately, did nothing for the families. For the past six years his organization has maintained a sit-in in a garden in front of UN House in the center of Beirut, in the hope that somebody will help them. In 2005 the garden was full of tents. Now there is a solitary canvas structure which has taken on a depressing air of permanence, complete with a fridge, TV and microwave oven.

Until last year, Eid was a member of a hardcore group that would take turns sleeping overnight in the tent, to maintain the protest. But 20 years of searching for her son has taken a toll on the 60-something diabetic woman with high blood pressure. She no longer spends any time in the tent. Still, for the first time in years, she is hopeful. "Now, with this chaos in Syria, it might be an opportunity for us to finally find out what happened to Jihad," she says from her home on the outskirts of Beirut. "I just need to know," she says. "One way or the other, I need to know."

Hallit has a more textured perspective. If Assad survives this uprising, the doctor fears the Syrian and Lebanese detainees will continue to spend years suffering behind bars, their fates unknown to the rest of the world. But if Assad falls, he declares, "they'll be heroes."

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. Next