Jordan: Syrian opponent says threatened with deportation

The Azraq Syrian refugee camp, Jordan.

AFP

Text by: Guilhem Delteil Follow

7 mins

For several weeks, Hasna al-Hariri has said that she has been under pressure from the Jordanian authorities to leave the country where she found refuge in 2014. This opponent of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, known for having denounced the torture and rape in the regime's prisons Syrian, was forced to leave Amman this week.

She is now in a camp near the Syrian border and says she fears a forced return to her country.

Publicity

Originally from Deraa, the cradle of the protest against Bashar al-Assad, Hasna al-Hariri and her family joined the opposition from the start of the movement. One of his sons deserted the army, another joined the rebels. She herself then began delivering food to these anti-Assad fighters. As a price for this commitment, 13 people from her family were killed, including her husband and three of her sons.

Hasna al-Hariri, she was in prison several times between 2011 and 2014, when she was released through a prisoner exchange and found refuge in Jordan. Upon her release, she became one of the few women to testify openly to the abuse suffered in these prisons by the Syrian regime.

“Rape was everywhere. In actions, in threats, in speeches. That was the key word. Rape. To make me crack, the guards took me into the torture rooms where naked men were raped and they shouted at me:

“Look closely! This is what will happen to your sons and daughters if you keep plotting against the regime. We will rape you all! "

They know very well that in our societies, rape is worse than death",

she told

Le Monde

in 2017

Rape, a taboo subject

“Hasna al-Hariri is one face among many of the revolutionaries.

But it is a symbol which is strong, because she testified on a very taboo subject ”,

judge Firas Kontar, a Franco-Syrian lawyer and political scientist, militant of the Syrian opposition.

“For example, she gives you her testimony about a woman to whom the jailers introduced a rat into her vagina.
She died of it.
Other people have testified, but the voice of women is rare and often anonymous when they do manage to speak.
So Hasna al-Hariri brought a testimony which is very important ”,

he continues.

The strength of her testimony, but also her aura, drew attention to her and Hasna al-Hariri became one of the faces of the revolution against Bashar al-Assad.

“She is a woman who is listened to in her region.
She comes from a large, tribal family, which has influence within its community in the province of Daraa, ”

notes Salam Kawakibi, director of the Arab Center for Research and Political Studies in Paris.

"Illegal activities"

In Jordan, Hasna al-Hariri continued his militant activities. She says she is determined to testify one day at the trial of Bashar al-Assad before an international court. But she is a target for the Damascus regime.

“At the end of 2018, I was contacted by the Jordanian secret services warning me that the Syrian regime was asking for my transfer to Syria. "

It's just to warn you

I was told. I then felt protected in Jordan by international law. At the beginning of April 2021, I was summoned by these same services: "

The Syrians are asking for you again with insistence. You are given fourteen days to leave Jordan,"

she said at the beginning of the week in another interview with

Le Monde.

Two other Syrian activists would have received the same injunction, she said.

After this warning in early April, she recorded an audio message circulating on WhatsApp groups of Syrian opponents.

A campaign is emerging on social networks to pressure Jordan to give up expelling Hasna al-Hariri.

Jordan denies any deportation attempt to Syria: the country welcomes the Syrians as

"dear guests, doing everything possible to ensure them a dignified life,"

an official told the

Jordan Times

on condition of anonymity

But he admits that Hasna al-Hariri has been asked to put an end to his

"illegal activities which harm Jordan"

.

" The Bourne Ultimatum "

Earlier this week, Hasna al-Hariri said she was arrested by Jordanian forces and forced to leave Amman, the capital, with her son and family. She is now in the Azraq camp, in the middle of the desert in northeast Jordan. Joined by

Le Monde,

she said at the time that she feared

"to be transferred and eliminated in Syria"

.

Within the ranks of the opposition, the Syrian regime's desire to silence dissenting voices in exile is not in doubt and threats are taken seriously.

“It is not, I think, its status as a symbol that makes it a target: this regime takes revenge on all those who have struck it.
He has revenge in his skin, ”Judge

Firas Kontar.

However, his personality status should offer him protection.

Before having to leave Amman, she had initiated steps with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to find another host country.

"Many organizations will work for her to leave Jordan,"

predicts this Syrian opposition activist.

Fear machine

But this pressure on Hasna al-Hariri is seen as a personal threat also by other opposition activists

.

“What the Bashar al-Assad regime is looking for is to reestablish its fear machine. And he shows that he has the capacity, ”says

Firas Kontar. Especially since among the exiled Syrians, many make the link between the case of Hasna al-Hariri and the threats of expulsion of Syrians from the region of Damascus who have taken refuge in Denmark.

"Everyone interprets this by the international desire to rehabilitate the Syrian regime, to turn the page of its abuses and to re-establish diplomatic relations with it", indicates

Salam Kawakibi.

This interpretation

"is perhaps false", specifies

the director of the Arab Center for Research and Political Studies in Paris for whom other interests, domestic politics or geopolitics, dictate the decisions of States with regard to Syria. and Syrians. And to expel Hasna al-Hariri

“

would be a radical change which would have very violent repercussions; I don't believe Jordan will go that far,

”he said. Jordan hosts 1.3 million Syrian refugees on its territory: the forced return of a well-known personality could create tensions in the country.

“But anything is possible right now.
Turkey is reconnecting with Egypt, the Saudi leaders - whom Assad called half-men - are reconnecting with him.
The Emirates - which have been called apes by the Syrian regime - are also reconnecting with him.
Nothing surprises me on the international scene anymore ”,

Jordan: Syrian opponent says threatened with deportation

Jordan: Syrian opponent says threatened with deportation

Rape, a taboo subject

"Illegal activities"

" The Bourne Ultimatum "

Fear machine

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