The Story of Torturing a Syrian Child

Mouaz began suffering from health problems because of the maltreatment, torture, and filth of the cell, but no one listened

Mouaz Abdulrahman, Hama resident born in 1999, is still a child. But his youth did not save him from experiencing the harshest kinds of torture and abuse, nor from being put on trial.

According to the Violation Documentation Center in Syria (VDC), security agents arrested the child when he was with a friend in the city market. When he saw a car full of security members he got nervous and, after they discovered that his name was on the list of wanted activists, he set himself to face the fate of arrest and transfer to the Military Security Branch in the city of Hama.

 

"I was taken then to a solitary confinement room two meters long and one meter wide, there were four detainees and I was the fifth. We had to close the slot of the toilet inside the cell to sleep over it due to the severe lack of space," Mouaz said.

 

"On the first day that I arrived at the [security] branch, I was summoned at night to my first investigation session. I was tortured on a wheel and beaten with a wooden stick all over my body, the investigator chargedme with carrying weapons. I was beaten for nearly three hours to [get me to] admit this charge against me, but I did not confess because I never carried a weapon."

 

Mouaz began suffering from health problems because of the maltreatment, torture, and filth of the cell, but no one listened. Each time he requested a simple [medical] treatment, his demand was refused.

 

He started to give his confessions when he was facedwith video clips he filmed during the demonstrations, and that security forces had taken from his personal computer when they raided his home.

 

Mouaz was beaten severely and repeatedly, humiliated with various words, and was summoned to be“investigated,” in order to torture him without [asking] a single question.

 

Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer

 

According to Mouaz, “after a month and four days in the Military Security Branch, I was transferred to the military police in the province of Hama. I arrived at the 600 Branch, and when I entered the branch I was surprised by the amount of dirt and the stench, and the significant spread of diseaseamong the detainees. I entered a narrow cell where there were anywhere between 30 to 100 people, and I had one "slab" to sleep on while sitting.”

 

After 67 days in the 600 Branch, Mouaz was transferred to the public prosecution [building] in Damascus and then to the Court of Terrorism in Damascus in order to be transferred to the military police in Qaboun as a holding station before being transferred to the prison of Adra to be held on trial before the Court of Terrorism. But prison officials refused to receive Mouaz because he had not reached eighteen years of age. The eighth investigating judge released Mouaz for lack of evidence of any offense. Mouaz got out of the Justice Palace in Damascus surprised by the numbers number of people asking him about their detained relatives.

 

Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer

 

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