My name is Ola, from the countryside of Damascus. This is my daughter beside me, in the fourth grade. She has never seen her father; on the day he was arrested, she was still a fetus in my womb.

If my death had been optional, I would not have hesitated.

If I could erase my memory, I would do so.

And every night when I close my eyes, my nightmares—real ones I once lived—return, refusing to leave me even in my waking hours.

In my twenties, I was born twice. The first time was when I visited the Holy House of God.
The second was upon my return to my country, when the voices of young people rose, chanting for freedom and filling every place. My soul was irresistibly drawn to join them with happiness and enthusiasm. One day, I broke through fear and my mother’s warnings. As I had planned, I left the women’s hair salon where I worked, wearing a abaya so no one would recognize me, roaming freely through the streets of freedom and the most beautiful days of life.

Between Daraa, where I was born and lived with my husband and children, and Ghouta, where my family resided, I participated with the people of my town in peaceful demonstrations. My young students at school preceded me in joining them; even a fourth-grade pupil was among those students. My activism was not as visible as that of my brothers, who had long opposed the regime and were wanted because of their full involvement in the revolution. 

In my memory there are details I can never forget. Every evening I look up at the sky in confession and supplication, believing that justice has an hour in which I will recount all that happened. And so that the truth does not slip away, I disclose to you what I have preserved of it.

The nightmare of my detention is still a daily reality I live with. In my village, they call me “a graduate of prisons,” and my story has become their daily topic, told in differing versions, though they all agree on one thing: despising me. I am often accused with offensive allegations; the kindest among them merely choose to distance themselves and their families from me. I have no response but tears. I grew tired of the hostile stares, so I confined myself to my home and rarely leave it. I do not know whether the way my village treats former female detainees is similar to how detainees are treated in other regions.

A paper presented by Mizan Organization for Human Rights, at the Second Syrian Justice Conference.

Held on July 30-31 in Gaziantep. Entitled: Justice in the Eyes of the Victims.

Mizan Organization announced that it has recovered (448) highly significant and sensitive original documents from the United Nations’ International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) and handed them over to the National Commission for the Missing in Syria, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates. This step constitutes an unprecedented precedent in the recovery of national documents related to crimes of enforced disappearance and unlawful burial.

In the context of the grave violations suffered by the Syrian people during the years of the revolution—including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, forced displacement, and ill-treatment—these practices have left profound consequences that extend beyond direct victims to affect their families, particularly women and children. Many have found themselves trapped in a prolonged state of loss, uncertainty, and lack of legal protection.

Kidnapping, enforced disappearance, deprivation, torture, and humiliation were not the worst I endured during my imprisonment; there was something far more horrifying.