Her brother Mohammad Al Husni was a prominent pro-democracy activist and organizer of protest marches against the Assad regime in Homs, a center of the unrest, located in central Syria.
Mr. Al Husni had gone underground to evade the security forces.
The regime’s intentions in abducting Zainab were clear.
The secret police kidnapped Zainab so they could threaten her brother and pressure him to turn himself in to the authorities. The government often uses this tactic to get to activists, a spokesman for the Homs Quarters Union, a pro-democracy organization, told CNN.
She would be freed, her family was told, only if her brother surrendered to the authorities.
Mr. Al Husni was subsequently arrested (in what circumstances, it is not clear), and on September 13, his mother was instructed to go the morgue in order to identify her son’s mutilated, bruised and burned body.
While there she came upon Zainab’s remains, which had been stored in a freezer at the Homs military hospital for quite a while…
According to Amnesty International, Zainab had been decapitated, her arms cut off and skin removed.
The human rights organization also disclosed that the family had been compelled by the security forces to sign a document stipulating that Zainab and Mohammad had been kidnapped and killed by an armed gang.
The regime continues to claim, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that those opposing it are not peaceful protesters demanding change, but criminal gangs manipulated bye foreign radicals.
At her funeral, mourners held signs in honor of Zainab (They killed the rose Zainab).
They also chanted Syria wants freedom and the people want the president’s ouster.
Since August 31, Amnesty International has documented at least fifteen other cases of detainees dying in custody. The bodies have borne signs of beating, shooting and stabbing, according to the organization.
The regime’s tactics are getting harsher, for the uprising, although having lost some momentum since the Ramadan, continues.
Hence, all those actively involved in the protest movement, which has been overwhelmingly peaceful, are targeted in order to crush it once and for all.
Known in Darayya, a Damascus suburb, for his determination to shun violence, Ghiyath Matar, a tailor almost twenty-five, and about to become a father, was nicknamed Little Gandhi.
During demonstrations, he would distribute roses to soldiers and offer them cold bottles of water, while chanting peaceful, peaceful.
The security forces arrested Matar and his fellow activist Yahya Sherbaji after the latter’s brother, already in detention was compelled to call Yahya and ask for help, claiming that he had been wounded.
Aware that they were perhaps about to fall into a trap, they responded to the call anyway…
Four days later, on September 13, Matar‘s body was released to his family.
There were bruises around his throat and burn marks across his body, as well as two bullet holes in his abdomen.
The fate of Mr. Sherbaji remains unknown.
Why would the Assad regime torture and kill someone as harmless as Ghiyath Matar?
Ghiyath’s peaceful nature, his refusal to resort to violence when confronted by violence blatantly contradicted the regime’s depiction of the protest movement as a violent uprising of armed groups.
His sole presence in a street demonstration made a mockery of the regime’s justification for utilizing brutal repressive tactics against demonstrators.
As a result, his example was perceived as a dire threat by the authorities.
Ghiyath was embarrassing the regime with his high morals and principles. The regime likes the radicals to justify the military crackdown, but with Ghiyath, the regime knew it would lose, Abu Omar, a Matar relative, told Nada Bakri of the NYT.
Aware that his activities would likely lead to a premature death at the hands of Assad’s security apparatus, Ghiyath Matar had prepared a statement to be read after his death.
Don’t think they triumphed over me with the bullet they shot me with. No, I won and my case won every time I went to the streets, he wrote.
Remember me when you celebrate the fall of the regime and remember that I gave my soul and my blood for that moment. May God guide you on the road of peaceful struggle and grant you victory, he added…
Ghiyath Matar’s wake was attended by a number of foreign ambassadors posted in Damascus, including US envoy Robert Ford, France’s Eric Chevallier and those of Britain and Japan.
Once they had departed, Assad’s security forces raided the event, firing live rounds and tear gas.
If the relatives of peaceful activists, as well as those peaceful activists themselves are being deliberately tortured and killed by the regime, does peaceful resistance have a viable future in Assad’s Syria?
The life of a Syrian activist is becoming more and more dangerous. They face the prospect of death, torture, humiliation every time they venture on the streets, Iyad Sherbaji, a friend, though no relation, of Yahya Sherbaji, told the NYT.
Can peaceful resistance hope to overthrow the regime?
We know how peaceful this guy (Matar) was, and he was tortured to death, and it shows that if we continue like this, we’ll be treated like anyone who had a gun and was a terrorist. Everyone’s really , really angry, a Damascus activist known by his nom-de-guerre Alexander Page, told the WP.
For Assad, anyone demanding that his basic rights be respected is a terrorist.
Matar’s supporters however, are determined to follow his example come what may.
There are many views, and one of them is to take up arms. But for me, and for his friends, and for his family, peaceful resistance is the only option, a friend told the WP.
As we have seen, the regime has fine-tuned its strategy and now specifically targets the leaders of the uprising.
In Daraya, near Damascus, the Assad security apparatus succeeded in arresting all the known leaders of the protest movement.
This did not deter the citizens of Daraya from demonstrating in the city’s streets at the first opportunity…
Daraya security is flabbergasted. More than two dozen field activists and protest organizers were in detention, and the town protested as usual.
It was as if nothing had happened, Mohja Kahf, an activist wrote on Twitter, according to the NYT.
The Syrian people are creative enough to find ways to overcome the repression and keep protesting, an activist told the NYT.
Indeed, they are…
This is a clear manifestation of the protest movement’s stamina and determination, and a vibrant testimony to the inordinate bravery of the Syrian people.…
Yet relentless repression and the inability of the democracy movement to overthrow the regime after six months of protests have engendered a great deal of frustration and dismay.
A lot of people have gone into hiding, and a lot of people are not taking part in protests, Page told the WP.
That said, the uprising is by no means vanquished, and, as far as many activists are concerned, it can only continue.
Were they to concede defeat, the regime would avenge itself mercilessly…
Protesters are telling authorities that they have the patience of Job.
They have faith and believe that, if the protests stop, there will be revenge and killings that no one will survive from. That is why people are insisting to continue until the end, Iyad Sherbaji told Anthony Shadid of the NYT.
A stalemate of sorts has been established that some believe can only be overcome by force of arms, given the brutality of the Assad regime.
From the beginning, I knew that the revolution would take a long time for us.
But we are unarmed and I don’t think the regime will fall when faced only with peaceful protests, a doctor told Reuters.
In addition, the growing number of army defectors (mostly disaffected Sunnis who dominate the enlisted ranks) joining the anti-Assad movement has accelerated the militarization of the uprising.
Some 10,000 have already done so, forming the Free Syrian Army, and the apparently rival Free Officers Movement.
It is the beginning of armed rebellion. You cannot remove this regime except by force and bloodshed. But our losses will not be worse than we have right now, with the killings, the torture and the dumping of bodies, General Riad Asaad, who defected in July, told Liz Sly of the WP.
His objective is to replicate the Libyan scenario: conquer a swath of Syrian territory; obtain international protection akin to the NATO-imposed no-fly zone in Libya, then march on Damascus…
The armed rebellion may be only in its infancy, but Assad is taking no chances.
Rastan, a city in eastern Syria, has become a center of the armed resistance to Assad, and hosts hundreds of defectors.
On Tuesday morning, the Syrian army, equipped with tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters, attacked the city.
Tanks closed in on Rastan overnight and the sound of machine guns and explosions has been non-stop. They finally entered this morning, one resident told Reuters.
In spite of clashes of this nature, the uprising has been overwhelmingly a peaceful one, no matter what the regime’s propaganda claims.
I don’t think the numbers (of defectors) are big enough to have an impact one way or another on the government or on the contest between the protesters and the government. The vast majority of protests are still unarmed, and the vast majority of protesters are unarmed, Ambassador Ford told Liz Sly of the WP.
Yet by transforming the act of peacefully protesting into a potentially lethal endeavor, the regime has left its opponents with but two choices: relent and go home, thereby giving the regime a new lease on life, or take up arms against it, thus justifying the official propaganda claiming that it is compelled to use force against armed groups bent on destabilizing the country and seizing power.
Will the opposition be tempted to resort to violence if the peaceful protests fail to topple the regime, thereby falling into what Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group called a trap?
Would such a transformation of the uprising however, be morally reprehensible?
A people under attack, one that is being fired upon by its own army, and threatened with abduction and torture, has the right to defend itself.
Assad has taken the fateful decision to wage war on his own people.
They have the right to resist because their demands are legitimate, in order to ensure their safety and wellbeing.
As in all nations, they have the right to demand freedom, justice and democracy.
If Assad persists in standing in their way, preventing them from obtaining these universal and inalienable rights, then he should be removed, by force if need be.
Should the Syrians, however, choose the violent option?
Those on the opposing side are Syrians too who shall still be there when the struggle is over.
The regime still has the support of Christian (about 10% of the Syrian population), Alawite and other minorities who fear being the victims of the chaos that would ensue the fall of the repressive Assad regime.
We are all scared of what will come next, Abu Elias, a Christian, told the NYT.
Specifically, the Christians fear that a future Sunni government could persecute them for being Christians, and former supporters of the Assad regime.
The Iraqi precedent is not encouraging…
In addition, it is by no means clear Assad’s opponents could defeat the regime’s security apparatus, dominated by the Alawites, who have too much to lose should Assad (himself an Alawite) fall.
It is for the Syrians to choose however and not for us to advise them from the comfort of our studies thousands of miles away…
Yet, only by choosing the path of peaceful resistance can the opposition hope to convince these anxious minorities that the new post-Assad Syria that should soon emerge is also theirs...
There are no signs of torture and murder abating in Syria.
The mounting toll of reports of people dying behind bars provides yet more evidence of crimes against humanity and should spur the UN Security Council into referring the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, wrote Philip Luther, of Amnesty International.
The UN Security Council has failed the Syrian people who deserve the support of all civilized nations.
How many Syrians will have to be arrested, tortured and killed ( over 2,700 to date, including some 100 children), how many more Zainabs and Ghiyaths sacrificed, before Syria’s patrons at the Council, Russia and China, finally decide to act?
(the photograph of Ghiyath Matar above was found here)
