" Hamza al-Khateeb used to love it when the rains came to his small corner of southern Syria, filling up the farmers' irrigation channels enough so that he and the other children could jump in and swim. But the drought of the last few years had left the 13-year-old without the fun of his favourite pool.
Instead, he'd taken to raising homing pigeons, standing on the roof of his family's simple breeze-block home, craning his neck back to see the birds circling above the wide horizon of fields, where wheat and tomatoes were grown from the tough, scrubby soils. "
He was arrested during a protest near Daraa on the 29th April. The scars on his body showed that the Syrian "security" forces attacked this thirteen year old boy during the month he was in their care, with electric shocks and by whipping him with wire cables. Even in his death they degraded themselves by shooting him through the arms into his stomach, breaking his neck, and cutting off his genitals. His mother was only allowed to see his face, while his father looked on his son's body and fainted.
According to Ricken Patel of Avaaz (the international rights and advocacy group) " This is a campaign of mass terrorism and intimidation: Horribly tortured people sent back to communities by a regime not trying to cover up its crimes, but to advertise them. "
The treatment of Hamza al-Khateeb is not an isolated incident but part of a campaign. The aim is to intimidate some of the Syrian population. While others will be driven to such rage that they will try to take revenge against the armed forces, the security forces or the Alawite minority. This would then allow Assad to claim he was fighting a civil war.
The unrest started in Deraa on the 6th March, when 15 boys between the ages of 10 and 15 were arrested by the security forces for painting "The people want to topple the regime!" on the walls. They were beaten, burned with cigarette ends and then had their fingernails removed. Only after two weeks of protests were the boys released. By this time three people had been shot dead by the security forces, and many others wounded. After this there was a spiral of violence with each protest by the people of Deraa being met with increasing violence by the security forces. The city has now been under siege by the army since the 25th April.
According to the Humans Rights Watch report “We’ve Never Seen Such Horror, Crimes against Humanity by Syrian Security Forces." published on the 1st June 2011. " The security forces have killed at least 418 people in the Daraa governorate alone, and more than 887 across Syria.... "
There have also been around 10,000 people arrested in Syria by the security forces since the protests began, with all the terrible suffering that this involves.
See: "We are all Hamza al-Khateeb." https://www.facebook.com/hamza.alshaheed?sk=wall
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