Wednesday, October 11, 2023
12:00 - 1:15 p.m.
Joukowsky Forum, 111 Thayer
About the Event
Out of a pre-war Syrian population of 24 million, at some point during the ongoing conflict, there were about 250,000 Syrians detained in its many prisons, a percentage of the population (1%) that dwarfs that of many other authoritarian regimes. Imprisonment may well be a defining characteristic of postcolonial Syrian history, and its widespread violence under especially the Assad regime since 1970 has made a profound impact on Syrian society. Yet due to the strict secrecy, censorship, and pervasive fear surrounding prisons, as well as the ‘conspiracy of silence’ between perpetrators and victims, Syrian prisons have not been examined systematically. In this book talk, Üngör offers an examination of Syria’s prison system, using a combination of sources and methods, including published sources such as memoirs, social media data, leaked regime files, and oral history interviews. He will look into the structure and functioning of arrest, detention, and torture, discuss the identities of the perpetrators, and probe the experiences of the survivors, including how they overall fared after fleeing abroad.