Syrian rights group says activists subjected to organ theft, torture before death

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

One of the slogans the deceased activist (above) wrote for the protests: “We are brothers and if I were you, I wouldn’t kill peaceful protestors. The homeland is for everyone. Please let us stage peaceful protests.” (Photo courtesy Al Arabiya)

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By Mohamed Zeid Mesto
Al Arabiya

A few days after he was arrested, Syrian activist Ghayath Mattar was returned by security forces to his family as a corpse. The condition of his body not only spoke of the torture to which he was subjected before his death, but also showed clear signs that some of his organs were taken right after his death.

The longitudinal incision in Mattar’s body, which is shown in a video posted on You Tube, was not there at the time when his family visited him in the hospital the day before they took his body, said an activist and close friend of Mattar’s, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“When they visited him at the Military Hospital in Damascus, the doctors tried to make his family sign a release form for his operation, saying the possibility of the surgery’s success was not more than five percent,” he told Al Arabiya in a phone interview.

According to the activist, the doctors wanted to justify the presence of this large incision when they handed the body to his family.

“Let me also point out that Mattar’s family went to a different hospital the next day to retrieve the body.”

The activist added that a few hours after Mattar was buried in the southwestern governorate of Rif Dimashq, Syrian security forces exhumed his body.

“They took around an hour and 15 minutes and nobody knows what happened there. Till now, the grave is under tight security and no one is allowed to visit.”

According to his friend, Mattar was also tortured when he was arrested and several marks on his body attest to this.

“When I saw his body, there were burn marks on his neck and chest, wounds on his face and wounds on his neck as if he had been strangled. There were also bruises under his knee.”

He added that Mattar’s penis was cut off and that doctors explained this as a result from an injury in the pancreas.

The activist denied that Mattar’s family got the chance to speak to the ambassadors of Japan, the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark who came to offer their condolences.

“They just offered their condolences then left and immediately after that, security forces stormed the place under the pretext that weapons were hidden in the house.”

Loyalists to the Syrian regime, he added, launched a campaign against Mattar’s family and wrote on the walls of his hometown of Darayya, derogatory statements like: “Down with the Mattars who received the American ambassador.”

Mattar, 26, disappeared on September 6 with one of his friends, who also took part in organizing peaceful protests against the Syrian regime, after they were both chased by security forces in Damascus.

Mattar’s case is not the first of its kind as several activists have had their organs stolen right after they were killed, said the Syrian Committee for Human Rights in statement it issued on September 15.

According to the statement, several activists who are killed or tortured to death by security forces have large scars on their stomachs which can be distinguished from other signs of torture.

“These show that the stomachs were slit open then knit back randomly. These are obviously surgical procedures.”

(This article was translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid.)