She kept searching for him in her country's prisons relentlessly
A Syrian activist presents to the world the case of her father and the other disappeared
Wafaa in front of a panel displaying pictures of her family.
From the source
Wafaa with her father before the outbreak of the Syrian revolution.
From the source
Wafa was granted asylum in Germany.
From the source
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Ali Mustafa dreamed of seeing his dear country Syria free from the grip of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, but he disappeared in 2013, and his daughter, Wafaa, has been organizing campaigns in Germany and other regions of the world, to support his and her cause, and the cause of the disappearance of more than 150,000 people since The outbreak of protests in Syria.
Eight years ago, when pro-democracy protests erupted on the streets of Syria, gunmen arrested Wafaa Mustafa's father (Ali), from his apartment in Damascus, loaded him into a car, and drove him away.
This was the last time Wafaa saw or heard of her father.
"In a few moments our family was shattered," she says. "That was the end of our quiet life, and the beginning of another kind of existence we had never known before."
Wafa was 23 at the time, now 31, and had not spoken to her father in nearly 3,000 days.
She says: “When I lost my father, it seemed to me that I lost a part of my soul.” And she continues, “After taking him from us, I realized that my whole life was lost, everything was lost, I keep looking for it in all faces, it was for us that essential strength, and without him I would not know For years who I am.”
And she continues, "We did everything we could to search for him, we assigned lawyers, we exhausted all communications, we bribed people who would point us to him, and we knocked on every door, but it was all to no avail."
dominance
The search for her father dominated her whole life.
She became an activist fighting for the release of all those still detained in Syria, and struggling not to forget the suffering families in her country.
Since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011, more than 150,000 civilians have been driven into detention centers, or tortured and killed by the Syrian government or other armed groups in a conflict that has separated millions of families.
Wafaa says: “What we are going through is a story of a collective tragedy in Syria. I doubt the existence of one family whose loved ones have not been arrested, kidnapped, or disappeared, whether this person is with or against the revolution, I do not care about that, I am defending On the freedom of all.
Her father was an outspoken critic of the regime and supporter of the Syrian revolution, which, when he disappeared in 2013, seemed to have the momentum to overthrow the regime.
She says: “My father lived in a neighborhood heavily controlled by the regime, but there was a lot of support for the revolution, and there were many arrests and kidnappings by government forces.” She continues, “My father was taken with his close friend, whose family was told that he was killed under Torture in a government detention center.
The Wafaa family hails from Masyaf, a religiously and politically diverse city in northwestern Syria, three hours from Damascus.
Prior to his disappearance, (Ali) had already been arrested, detained and tortured, by the regime, due to his human rights activism and political beliefs.
Struggler by nature
Wafa's passion for politics and freedom for Syria shaped her childhood.
About her father, she says: "He was really a hero for us. When he was a young man, he went out to fight for the Palestinian cause. He was a Palestinian freedom fighter. He filled our house with music, politics and people."
Growing up in Masyaf, Wafa always talked about her desire to become a war correspondent, “I knew that this would impress my father, all I wanted was to be just like him.”
(Ali) encouraged his three daughters to think about their future, even though they live under a system that restricts freedom of expression.
"We grew up in a society that believed that walls had ears," she says. "Everyone was afraid of that, but nothing was forbidden in our house. Neither mom nor dad hid their political views from us, they wanted us to be free."
The revolution turned Wafaa into a political activist.
She was out in the streets to protest every day.
Terrified, her mother was arrested and spent weeks in a Syrian government prison, where she was beaten and interrogated, and her father continued to support her participation in the uprising.
Her mother remained fully supportive of her, but she was afraid that what happened during the protests, including arrest and torture, would happen to her, while her father always told her: “You have to do what you think is right.”
“I think it takes a special kind of strength to see your children put themselves at risk for what they believe in, but a father has to support them with all his heart,” she says.
By 2013, as the conflict escalated, one of her best friends had been killed in a bombing by regime forces on a civilian neighborhood. “I protested every day for two years, I was expelled from school because of my political beliefs, I was arrested and terrorized,” she says.
And then when I lost my best friend, I felt a great loss.”
escaping inside
Ali Mustafa moved with his daughter to live in Damascus, where it became dangerous for them to stay in Masyaf.
"My father stayed by my side and looked after me in that really dark time," she says. "It was just him and me, and without him I wouldn't have done it, but he left me after a few months."
In July 2013, Wafa's mother, who resided with her youngest daughter in Masyaf, was on her way to Damascus to visit her husband after months of traveling with his daughter.
“My mum and dad had an epic love story, she still keeps his letters to her, and doesn't let us read them, it was hard for her to get away from him, and though travel was very dangerous at the time, my mum decided to visit my dad, and she was only 15 minutes away. From his apartment when I called him to tell him, but he was arrested when I got to the apartment.”
Her father's arrest marked the end of her life in her homeland.
She says: "I never thought that I would leave my country, I thought I would always stay and fight for a just Syria, but my father always advised us: "If I was arrested, you should take your mother and sister and go away, because they will come to arrest you too, and that's what we did."
Escape outside under cover of darkness
Wafaa, her mother and her younger sister fled the country across the border to Turkey under cover of darkness, carrying only their passports, and lived there for three years as refugees, a period that Wafa calls “the darkest of circumstances.”
"I was very depressed and desperate," she says.
During her stay in Turkey, she felt as if she was on the verge of life.
She felt that she had to stay in Turkey to take care of her mother and sister.
And she began working with the campaign team of civil society activists and media professionals from Raqqa governorate in a campaign under the slogan “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”, to document the atrocities of ISIS inside Syria. This campaign addressed human rights violations by ISIS and other forces occupying the northern Syrian city. .
However, one by one her colleagues were assassinated in Turkey by the terrorist group.
She later worked for a Syrian radio station and as a press reporter.
Family reunification breaks up
In 2016, Wafaa obtained asylum in Germany and traveled there, leaving her family in Turkey, and the small family has been separated ever since. Her mother and younger sister are now in Canada, and another sister is in the United States. "Separation from my mother is another hard-to-tolerate suffering," she says. Since her arrival in Berlin, the search for her father has taken her daily life. She says: "I live this existential crisis daily, I talk about him all day, every day, but I haven't heard his voice in eight years, it's the first thing I think of in the morning, it seems to me as if it is everywhere." "Enforced disappearances, kidnappings, detentions, they all break the will of the people who are left behind. It's a form of prison in itself, where you spend your life hanging in the air, helpless and with no way forward."Since 2016, while completing her education and working as a journalist, Wafaa has also worked with Families for Freedom, an activist group that campaigns for the release of victims of enforced disappearance.
Wafa presents her case to the United Nations
Wafa's activism led to discussion of the plight of the families of the missing Syrians at the highest political and diplomatic levels. In July 2020, she was asked to address the United Nations Security Council on enforced disappearance, as a war crime, where she demanded the release of those still detained in Syria. It was a fruitful experience because Assad's representative was at the same meeting at the United Nations. "I had to stay while he was talking, and then I felt like shivering, and I thought, 'Well, if I can get past that, then I'm strong,'" she says. The issue of arbitrary detention that she raised in her campaign was widely covered in the international media. In April of last year, Wafa organized a "one-woman" vigil outside a courtroom in Koblenz, Germany, where two former Syrian Military Intelligence officers - Anwar Raslan and Iyad al-Gharib - were on trial in a high-profile case over allegations of torture and murder in detention. in Damascus.Wafa sat alone among 121 photos of missing persons, including a photo of her father, who has been arrested since the start of the Syrian uprising.
“I felt a heavy burden because I was alone, sitting there surrounded by all those pictures of people I had never met before,” she says.
But I also felt very strong because I represent all these families, so that everyone knows that we cannot be silenced, and we will not give up until we find them.”
missing person symbol
Wafa has become a symbol of the search for the missing in Syria, and she is constantly contacted by families searching for their loved ones.
She says it's a huge responsibility, but she constantly asks: "Did my campaign lead to my father's release?
No, did it lead to the release of any of the disappeared?
Both.
But if I don't scream as loudly as I can to tell the world what happened to 150,000 people, we'll just forget.
I will not let that happen, I can assure these families that there are people fighting for them.”
She says it is unreasonable to stop trying to figure out what happened to her father.
“It does not seem to me that one day I will wake up and forget that my father is gone, or find a way to come to terms with the fact that my father is missing. No, I will keep looking for him until I find out the truth, even if it takes me the rest of my life.”
Wafaa discovers that her body has hardened and eroded due to the exhaustion she is experiencing due to the pain of her father's absence day after day.
Enforced disappearances, kidnappings, detentions, they all break people's will, it is a form of imprisonment in itself, where you spend your life hanging in the air, helpless and with no way forward.
Wafaa, her mother and her younger sister fled the country across the border to Turkey under cover of darkness, carrying only their passports, and lived there for three years as refugees, a period that Wafa calls “the darkest of circumstances.”
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