On the 09th of October, the group Families for Freedom held a local Amnesty International-hosted conference, in which they related the stories of just a few of the estimated 100,000 who have been detained.
‘Syrians’ – the word is heavy with connotations; the people of Syria are often collectivised – painted as victims and pawns in a game. That is perhaps why the conference held by Families for Freedom proved so popular: these women have succeeded in providing a human face for the humanitarian crises in Syria.
The conference, titled ‘No one is free until we’re all free’, was held at Amnesty International’s UK headquarters in London. The atmosphere of the hall was what one would expect, given the title, as the women depicted their immutable anguish over their experiences with unlawful detention in Syria.
The first speaker was Amina, who has had three brothers imprisoned since 2011. A translator was present to interpret her address for the English-speaking audience, however, until she had finished speaking and the translator had begun to convey to the audience what she had spoken, the audience had no knowledge of what Amina was saying. Regardless, she inflated the hall with a palpable silence through the clear pain in her voice and the way that the words seemed to catch in her throat as she attempted to share them. Her message itself was equally heart-rending, as she related that she would prefer the death of her loved ones to not knowing their fate.
Another speaker, Dr. Hala, communicated a similar message. She said, “I really wished that my brother was here paralysed in front of me, where I could see him, touch him, know where he is. I wished he had died in a bombing.” Indeed, the women emphasise the distress that the uncertainty causes them. The primary aim of the Families for Freedom women is to be granted knowledge of what has been done to the family that has been stolen from them.
Dr. Hala also commented on the immorality of the system of detainment carried out by the Syrian regime. “It is perhaps understandable why a dictatorial regime might arrest protestors,” she said. “But what I cannot understand is the arrest of doctors, for abiding by their hypocritic oath […] and what I cannot understand is the arrest of two-year-old children, of five-year-old children…”.
The conference was roughly two hours in duration and ended with questions from the audience; by the end it was clear that the ladies had a devotion to their cause of monumental proportions, and the audience was visibly impacted.
You can learn more about the campaign at https://act.thesyriacampaign.org/sign/hero-families.
By Noor Mahmood
