A Lower Hutt family who came to New Zealand as refugees from Syria has reflected on their imprisonments under the Assad regime after its collapse earlier this month.
Half a century of rule by the Assad family in Syria ended after insurgents captured city after city and converged on the capital, Damascus.
Diaa and his father, Mohammad, were detained while they were walking home in 2011.
“I didn’t do anything, I was 15 years old, just two days after passing my intermediate school,” Diaa said. He was imprisoned for a few weeks.
Mohammad was locked up for a year and accused of helping to fund protests.
Translated from Arabic by Diaa, he told 1News: “They were using all the classic medieval torture techniques, all the classic beatings, hitting, pulling out nails, hanging from the ceilings and electrified metal chairs.”
The conditions were so bad that he lost 65kg, and at one point, he was taken to an underground detention centre.
“If you put your finger in front of your face, you can’t even see it.”
He said that around 40 people were in one of the cells he was in and that they used to share stories from prior to the outbreak of war “just to make a life out of the darkness we were living in”.
Another son, Mostapha, a journalist, helped to document the war and was arrested while filming a protest in 2021.
“For that he was treated really badly, and they have thrown him in a really bad cell and he was tortured again and again,” Diaa told 1News.
He was released after a few months in captivity, but many were not.
The family want to see Assad brought back to Syria to face justice.
“We want to give him a taste of his own medicine. That’s the most fair thing to do with him,” Diaa said.
