When I start to write,
it feels as if
I am relating the personal experience of someone
who has known only ugly wars
and never in his life felt at rest.
I am not revealing a secret when I say that,
due to constant mistreatment by my jailer,
I often wished myself dead.
I was one of the first who demonstrated against the Assad regime.
My siblings were absolutely opposed to this and very frightened.
“These people are capable of doing anything to keep power.
You will simply be lost!”
Today they still hold this opinion.
At some demonstrations, up to a million people came.
In the centre of Hama, when I helped a hurt person,
who later died from the injuries,
government soldiers said to me:
“We will exterminate you all.”
They took me to a site of the air force secret service
that lies at the edge of the ruined city,
started to beat me with their weapons and torture me.
I was bleeding everywhere and lost consciousness.
A hostage, every day I longed for liberation.
It took four months.
During my imprisonment
I did not see the sun once,
and did not once hear from my brothers and sisters.
Each of my arrests
cost them a lot of money.
And one day they said:
“You are eligible for military service now.
You must get out of here.”