Tortured and killed: Hamza al-Khateeb, age 13
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.
Though not from a wealthy family himself, Hamza was always aware of others less fortunate than himself, said a cousin who spoke to Al Jazeera.
“He would often ask his parents for money to give to the poor. I remember once he wanted to give someone 100 Syrian Pounds ($2), and his family said it was too much. But Hamza said, ‘I have a bed and food while that guy has nothing.’ And so he persuaded his parents to give the poor man the 100.”
In the hands of President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces, however, Hamza found no such compassion, his humanity degraded to nothing more than a lump of flesh to beat, burn, torture and defile, until the screaming stopped at last.
Arrested during a protest in Saida, 10km east of Daraa, on April 29, Hamza’s body was returned to his family on Tuesday 24th May, horribly mutilated.
The child had spent nearly a month in the custody of Syrian security, and when they finally returned his corpse it bore the scars of brutal torture: Lacerations, bruises and burns to his feet, elbows, face and knees, consistent with the use of electric shock devices and of being whipped with cable, both techniques of torture documented by Human Rights Watch as being used in Syrian prisons during the bloody three-month crackdown on protestors.
-DAMN! 🙁
That is just horrible. I couldn’t make myself look at the video. People no matter where they live should never be treated this way.
I read about this story a few days ago. Its just nauseating man. It makes you wonder how people who could do such a thing could live with themselves
This is absolutely stomach turning. The sad thing is this is just one story of many. No one, especially no child, should ever have to go through torture like that. 😥
“They were all arrested by the anti-terrorism branch of the Airforce Intelligence”
That statement sent chills down my spine. It seems almost anything is justifiable in this world under the umbrella of “fighting terrorism”.
It is on our news here. Blood curdling. Now they will use it to make a case for taking military action against Syria. Otherwise, we would not have heard about this boy. Cynical, yes I know, but you know our governments only take action against another country’s government when it is in their own interests to do so, not as they say, in the interests of human rights.