Watan-Security elements affiliated with the Syrian regime have arrested a fourth-grade elementary school child, aged nine, in the village of Marj al-Qata in the western countryside of Homs, on charges of defacing the image of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated in a statement that the school principal assaulted and abused the child for defacing Bashar al-Assad’s image by drawing on it in the social studies textbook, and the fate of the child remains unknown at the moment.
Similar Incident
This incident is reminiscent of a similar event when children in Daraa wrote the phrase “Your turn, Doctor” on the wall of a boys’ high school in Baniyas in February 2011.
The children were subsequently arrested based on a complaint from the school principal, and the arrests continued from early February until the 26th of the same month in 2011.
Arrests and Abductions in February
During the past February, Syria witnessed arrests and abductions affecting 183 people, including children and women.
Out of these, 53 arrests in February took place in areas under the control of the Syrian regime, with reasons cited such as “failure to perform compulsory service,” “communication with external entities,” and “electronic crimes.”
Deaths in Prisons under Torture
The Observatory documented the deaths of four civilians under torture in security prisons affiliated with the Syrian regime during February.
On February 10, the Syrian Observatory reported that elements of the Political Security detachment inside the northern garage compound in Homs arrested a young man from the city of Talbiseh, north of Homs, about 10 kilometers away, taking him to the main branch located in the central station district of the city.
Activists from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted close sources as saying that the young man had no security or legal charges against him, enabling him to regularly go to work over the past years, bypassing all military checkpoints affiliated with the Syrian regime legally.
More than Half a Million Killed in the Syrian War: It is worth noting that the Syrian war has claimed the lives of more than half a million people and displaced millions since it began in March 2011, following Damascus’ suppression of protests against the government.