Remembering Mazen al Hamada ∞
Last week we received news that Mazen’s body was found in Syria. Words can’t express my devastation. Like so many, I desperately hoped for Mazen to be found alive.
Mazen was a survivor of the most atrocious torture imaginable in the most hellish detention centres on earth. He had witnessed the worst of man’s inhumanity to man. He was at the heart of the documentary I made with the director Sara Afshar exposing the horrors of President Assad’s detention centres. His testimony was unforgettable.
We spent lots of time with Mazen whilst making ‘Syria’s Disappeared’. He was determined to tell the world about Assad’s barbarity. He spoke his truth again and again and again, with rising desperation. He always reminded audiences that whilst he had escaped, thousands more detainees were still trapped, with more dying all the time.
Surely if the world understood, the ongoing atrocties would be stopped? Yet nothing happened and years passed.
Mazen was traumatised by the actions of the Assad regime, and re-traumatised by the inaction of the rest of the world. We failed to stop the torture and killing. We failed to save the remaining detainees.
In 2020 Mazen returned to Syria and disappeared into detention once again. We have been waiting for news of him ever since.
In the last few days, it has been incredible to see prison doors flung open and detainees stagger into the light. It seemed impossible, but it is done and the Syrians themselves have done it. It shows that anything is possible.
If only it had happened years ago. So many lives could have been saved. We must now come to terms with the scale of the loss and depth of the depravity. Families are searching for their missing loved ones, dead or alive. This is the reckoning.
I grieve for Mazen. I hope we can uncover the truth of what happened to him in the past few years. I wish he was here to see his dream of a free Syria come to life.
We’ve now made our film Syria’s Disappeared available on Vimeo so it’s free for anyone to watch worldwide.
Many outlets reported on Mazen’s life and death, but I recommend reading Liz Sly’s harrowing piece in the Washington Post.
Mazen’s funeral in Damascus drew in thousands of mourners and celebrants and received unprecedented international coverage. In the UK, it was a lead item on the BBC’s evening news bulletins and on Channel 4. Paraic O’Brien said in his report that it was “the street version of a state funeral, something Bashar al-Assad will never get”.