13 year old tortured by the Syrian Government...VERY GRAPHIC VIDEO
Al-Khatib was captured by Syrian security forces on April 29 and disappeared off the face of the earth for more than a month afterwards. According to the New York Times, his corpse was returned to his family several days ago on the condition that they did not discuss the mutilation and signs of torture. He is believed by his family to have died on May 25.
Shortly after al-Khatib's corpse was returned, a video appeared on YouTube detailing the condition of the child and clearly showing signs of extensive torture. A narrator, apparently the child's father, pointed out the child's wounds in halting classical Arabic with the assistance of at least one other individual wearing plastic gloves to handle the corpse.
The child's father, Ali al-Khatib, disappeared into government custody shortly after the video appeared on YouTube. He has not been seen since.
According to Al Jazeera's Hugh Macleod and Annasofie Flamand, the older al-Khatib was stifled in his attempts to press charges before he made the video:
Hamza's father, Ali al-Khateeb, wanted to press charges against the army and security forces, said Hamza's cousin. Instead, Ali and his wife were visited by the secret police and threatened. "They said: 'Enough of what has happened because of you already. You know what would happen if we heard you had spoken to the media,'" said Hamza's mother, clearly terrified as she spoke to the local activist, refusing to give further details on the circumstances of her son's arrest or death.
In a manner reminiscent of the footage of Iranian protester Neda Agha-Soltan's death that went viral worldwide in 2009, YouTube clips and Facebook postings on al-Khatib's sufferings are quickly winding their way across the Arab-language internet. YouTube took down the original al-Khatib video for a short period of time; during those hours, at least five alternate versions of the video--containing the same raw footage and images but with different audio and different editing--began to make their way onto social media sites.
HORRIBLY GRAPHIC..... DO NOT WATCH AND THEN POST ABOUT HOW IT WAS TOO GRAPHIC TO PUT HERE.
Syria's government has already began damage control for the al-Khatib video. The official Syrian Arab News Agency released a long English-language feature claiming that al-Khatib's father absolved Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of all crimes, called him “gentle and kind” and then claimed the boy's injuries were the result of being shot by anti-government protesters. As for the rest of al-Khatib's extensive injuries that weren't bullet wounds? According to the official Syrian party line, the burn marks, severed penis, broken kneecaps, and snapped neck simply didn't exist.
Al-Khatib's injuries are consistent with a Human Rights Watch report on torture methods by Syrian security and intelligence services that was issued in April 2011.
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