On Sunday, August 26, M., his wife, L., and their 18-year old son, B., reportedly were among the mourners at a funeral in a Damascus suburb. As they were leaving the burial site, they were approached by a group of armed men in civilian clothes who took M. and B. aside and began questioning them. M.’s wife, L., stood by, terrified, and begged to be allowed to talk to her husband and son, who were taken away and have not been heard from since. However a video has surfaced, in which the two men appear with a third, unidentified man. MEV has chosen not to link to the video due to concerns about the safety of remaining family members; a still shot from the video is featured above, with faces blurred to protect the identity of those pictured.
M.’s nephew, whom we will call Khalil, is a scholar, political and human rights activist who lives and works in the United States. He believes his relatives were kidnapped because he has appeared on radio and television networks in the U.S. criticizing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Khalil’s account, which can be read further below, cannot be independently verified.
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Khalil in the United States, September 4, 2012
There are three people in the video, two of them are related to me. The one in the middle, who is young, he is my cousin and his name is B. The man on the left, who is the oldest one, – his name is M., and he is B’s father, my uncle. And if you see the son, when I look at his face, there is some bleeding on his face when he says his name, under his eye.
M., the father, was for a long time unemployed. They are not a rich family. He worked later to sell things for Iranians, the pilgrims who come to Syria, and also for Syrians. He would sell things like scarves, toys and tea in a small store.
Hilleary: Let’s go back to what happened. What did family members tell you about the day they were arrested?
Khalil: They first said that they were at a funeral and when they were leaving the funeral, the shabiha took my uncle and cousin. Then the questioning started.
They first wanted to know why I came to the United States. My uncle and cousin said they knew only that I went to teach at a university. They didn’t know about my scholarship or which university. And they asked my relatives why I went? But they didn’t really know the answers to all of these questions. The shabiha had a list of my credentials, and asked my uncle what was I doing at [name of institution redacted]. They kept repeating the name of the [institution].
“[The shabiha] didn’t believe the story when my family told them that I had gone [to the U.S.] on a scholarship to teach. The shabiha thought the whole story was fabricated and that I was really doing something else.” – Khalil, a Syrian in the U.S.
Their primary question was, ‘Is he trying to overthrow the regime?’ They probably don’t know how things work here in the United States. They think every political structure operates like Syrian political structures, so if you are on T.V. or are writing for outlets like CNN, Fox News, Jerusalem Post or the Harvard International Review, they think you are connected to the government. They don’t know that here it doesn’t work like that. And so they were asking my uncle, ‘What is his group, who are the people that he is working with? Do you know who’s working with him there?’
They also wanted my contact information.
Hilleary: What about the funeral they were attending? Was there anything notable about that?
The funeral was for a Shi’a person, so it was related to the Shi’a minority. My brother said that the deceased had been kidnapped a month earlier and had disappeared. But his family was afraid of saying that. So, what they were saying when anybody asked them was, ‘Oh, he just passed away. It was just Allah’s will. God wanted him.’
Hilleary: Is there something you would like to say to the people who kidnapped your relatives?
“[My relatives] are not involved in politics. They didn’t write anything. They didn’t speak anywhere…,” – - Khalil, a Syrian in the U.S.
Khalil: I would want to say that my uncle and cousin haven’t done anything. They are not involved in politics. They didn’t write anything. They didn’t speak anywhere. They were people who were just working to make ends meet. The father has six children. He has been trying every month just to have enough food and clothes for his children. They weren’t involved in any political activities.
My family are from a minority in Damascus. And there are other minorities, and when I talk to them, they are much more frightened of the alternative, of what will come after Assad, and when I ask them why they are afraid, they say, look at what’s happening now! If he leaves, what will happen then? Now they’re kidnapping people, they are torturing people, they killing people, we have videos, we’re seeing this, and if Assad leaves, it’s going to get worse.
And that’s why you see what you see in Damascus; there is no strong minority group that speaks out against Assad. They are all silent. I don’t mean to imply that they agree with Assad, but I think they are afraid. And I think this is a strategy that they use to make people frightened of the alternative. Before, they weren’t any instances of public torture; it all happened inside the prisons, but now they are are doing it in public. And they send shabiha so they can say ‘it’s not us doing it.’
Cecily Hilleary
Cecily began her reporting career in the 1990s, covering US Middle East policy for Dubai-TV English. She has lived and/or worked in the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf regions, consulting and producing for several regional radio and television networks and production houses, including MBC, Al-Arabiya, the former Emirates Media Incorporated and Al-Ikhbaria. She brings to VOA and MEV a keen understanding of the region's top social, cultural and political issues.