“I was celebrating with my fellow Syrians…when they’re jumping, when they’re happy, when they’re crying, everybody is hugging everybody, that gives me hope.”
People all over the world watched as statues, billboards, and banners of Bashar Al-Assad, now Syria’s former president, were toppled, ripped, and removed after opposition groups forced him out of power over the weekend. Few, however, would have had the emotional reaction of Omar Alshogre, a leading activist and former child prisoner of Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison, who joined Mehdi from Sweden to talk about this historic moment.
“The joy that we have, we can’t even explain or tell you how huge it is,” says Alshogre, who was detained at the young age of 15 during a protest in Syria. “The officer was jumping over my body, came down to me and asked me, ‘Do you want freedom?’” Alshogre recounts, “I said yes. And then with the back side of his gun started to hit me on my head, on my back... I was taken to prison and I was tortured for the first time.”
Alshogre, who was smuggled out of prison on the day of his execution, describes the joy of seeing the people freed from detention over the weekend get a taste of that same freedom. “Imagine those people, some of them been in prison for 43 years, nobody knew that they are alive.” As hopeful as he is, Alshogre also tries to be realistic of the state that post-Assad Syria is in.
"I'm not saying we have democracy today. I'm not saying we have freedom of speech today. I don't think we have enough institutions. But the biggest obstacle that we had in Syria, that's the government that's killed over a million people for the last 14 years. So that's the biggest obstacle that brought Russia and Iran and Hezbollah to Syria, now all of them are gone.”
That transition into a post-war Syria, as Alshogre describes it, is off with a wave of forgiveness fueled by a seeming desire to move forward, not back. “The Alawites today joined the demonstration of celebration and they came there. The top leaders came and apologized for being so involved with that regime and people welcomed them back. You know, people welcomed back even though they suffered on their hands.”
Mehdi asked about some of the challenges ahead, as well the critics who worry about an extremist takeover of the war-torn country. Alshogre also addressed the millions of displaced Syrian refugees all over the world, hoping that this will be the start of a return for so many who had been forced out of their homes over so many decades.
“Millions of refugees had to flee to the West and study in the top universities in the world. Learn and experience democracy in Sweden, in America, and so on… Refugees are also one of the important keys for Syria, returning to Syria is necessary,” says Alshogre, and to those that do, he extends the warmest of invites.
“I invite the whole country and the whole of Syria to come and have tea at my grandma’s place in my village later… Everybody is invited to see the springs of water. We have the mountains and the sea.”
Watch the full interview above, which we are making free for all Zeteo subscribers, to hear why Alshogre’s family had to keep the existence of his sister in Syria a secret for the past decade, his plans for their long awaited reunion, and his views on HTS and some of the more extreme opposition groups.
In case you missed it, here is Zeteo’s latest town hall on Syria with Syrian-American journalist Hassan Hassan:
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