{"id":103742,"date":"2024-12-09T11:07:02","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T11:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/then-a-video-appeared-from-the-prison-in-syria-news-norway-overview-of-news-from-various-parts-of-the-country\/"},"modified":"2024-12-09T11:07:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T11:07:04","slug":"then-a-video-appeared-from-the-prison-in-syria-news-norway-overview-of-news-from-various-parts-of-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/then-a-video-appeared-from-the-prison-in-syria-news-norway-overview-of-news-from-various-parts-of-the-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Then a video appeared from the prison in Syria – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The older brother of al-Ali was only supposed to be gone for two weeks. He was 18 years old, and had enlisted in the Lebanese army to fight in Lebanon. This was after ten years of Lebanese civil war. Syria had a substantial presence of soldiers in Lebanon, in an attempt to end the fighting. If Ali was not allowed to enlist, he would anyway go south to the city of Saida. Their hometown, Akkar, lies in the north of the country. But two months passed without any news. The family decided to try to track him down. al-Ali (second from right) together with his three other brothers. Together they all contact the prison in Lebanon to find Ali. Photo: Amer Hassan Ali \/ Privat Mora traveled to Saida in southern Lebanon, while al-Ali contacted all prisons in the country. The few leads they had led nowhere. In the event that Syrian soldiers had arrested Ali in Lebanon, they contacted Syrian intelligence. They had reason to believe that he had been stopped at a checkpoint in northern Lebanon. If that were true, he would probably have been taken out of the country. A foreigner from Syria In June 1976, Syria intervened in the civil war in Lebanon, and sent in 25,000 soldiers. The military presence continued until 2005. It was in either 2007 or 2008 when an imam came to visit the family. He had a story to tell. – He himself had been in a Syrian prison, and said that my brother was in the same prison as him, says al-Ali to news. – He said that my brother had a seat in cell number 3 in Mezzeh, and even mentioned the name of one of the prison guards. al-Ali and his family traveled around Lebanon to find his older brother. A visitor from Syria said that they had been imprisoned together in Mezzeh. They asked the Mezzeh prison, but were told that he had been released several months ago. The governing authorities denied that he was still in the country, and with that the trail was cold. Then came the Syrian revolution in 2011. al-Ali was told that the regime had got rid of all the prisoners they had, to make room for rebels. – Then we lost hope, and thought that maybe God didn’t want him to be promiscuous, says al-Ali. The loose prisoner It has been almost 40 years since al-Ali saw his brother. For a long time, the family doubted whether he was alive at all. But on Sunday, the regime in Syria has fallen. Several rebel forces, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have taken power from President Bashar al-Assad. After Syria’s fourth largest city, Hama, was captured by the rebel forces, al-Ali was sent a video. It was an interview with a prisoner who had been released from the prison there. Earlier in the week, Ali was sent this video by family and friends. They said they thought the man looked like him. Photo: Ameer Hassan Ali \/ Privat The man had dirty clothes, a shaved beard and looked tired. Nevertheless: – I immediately understood that it was my brother. – Are you sure? – Yes, answers al-Ali. – We had lost hope, but he appeared. After 40 years. Starting the search again The family has managed to get in touch with the journalist who interviewed the loose prisoner, says al-Ali further. Before then he had traveled from the area where the prison is, but he could confirm that the man was Lebanese and had been imprisoned for 40 years. al-Ali thinks he is laughing from amnesia after so many years in captivity. If it really is the brother, he will have reached the age of 57. This tent has been in the center of Beirut since 2005, says al-Asmar. On the tent wall is a picture of Lebanese prisoners imprisoned in Syria. Photo: Wadih al-Asmar \/ Private – My mother is gone now. She died in 2019, but she always prayed to God to see my brother before he died. She had a strong feeling that he was still alive, he says. – We are still working to trace him, but we have not succeeded. The work is difficult, as it was the first time. But they have not given up hope. 600 missing Lebanese Wadih al-Asmar is head of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights. He has worked on this disappearance case for over 30 years, and tells news that it is far from unique. Wadih al-Asmar, head of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights. Photo: Wadih al-Asmar \/ Private – When the Syrian soldiers withdrew from Lebanon in 2005, many dared to say that their loved ones were abducted by the Syrian regime, says al-Asmar to news. – Then we were sent more than 600 names. Otherwise, the Lebanese government has not worked to find out where they went. Last year, Lebanon asked to join a UN body that will investigate missing persons in Syria, writes The New Arab newspaper. This despite the fact that it voted against the establishment. According to its website, the UN body is to have a leader appointed before the end of 2024. al-Asmar says he was happy when he saw that the rebel forces had released many prisoners, although they have not yet been able to trace which of the missing persons it applies to. – We cannot celebrate yet, as we are not completely sure. The situation in Syria is still very dangerous. Published 08.12.2024, at 22.47 Updated 09.12.2024, at 09.31
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The older brother of al-Ali was only supposed to be gone for two weeks. He was 18 years old, and had enlisted in the Lebanese army to fight in Lebanon. This was after ten years of Lebanese civil war. Syria had a substantial presence of soldiers in Lebanon, in an attempt to end the fighting. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6514,18,16,14,15,17,895,4400,1218],"class_list":["post-103742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-appeared","tag-country","tag-news","tag-norway","tag-overview","tag-parts","tag-prison","tag-syria","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}