Activist Mazen al-Hamada Buried: A Tragic Tale of Assad’s Oppression

On Thursday, many Syrians gathered to bury Mazen al-Hamada, an activist whose body was found along with 35 others in a hospital morgue near Damascus. This discovery came after the longtime president, Bashar al-Assad, was ousted. Mazen had been imprisoned twice under Assad’s rules. The first time was in 2011 during protests in Syria. He escaped to the Netherlands in 2014 and sought safety there.

Mazen returned to Syria unexpectedly in 2020 but was arrested at the airport and never seen again. Recently, over 30 bodies were found in the morgue of a hospital in Harasta, with many showing signs of torture. Mazen’s family recognized him from photos, and on Thursday, hundreds of people showed up outside Al-Mujtahid hospital in Damascus to pay their respects.

As they mourned, they held up the three-star flag that many supporters of the opposition in Syria have used throughout the civil war. Mazen’s mother was especially heartbroken, and his sister, Amal, shared that a doctor had told her he was likely executed about 10 days ago.

While in the Netherlands, Mazen talked about the awful treatment he faced in Syrian prisons. He said, “They destroyed my good memories. They took away my childhood and youth.” Diab Serriya, who works with families of detained people, mentioned that Harasta was a place where bodies from prisons were collected before being buried in mass graves.

Since the start of the civil war in 2011, around 60,000 people have died in prison from torture or terrible conditions, as reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Recently, rebels captured key cities, including the capital, during a fast offensive.