Hanin Gebran, released from al-Assad's jails in Syria: “The conditions in which journalists were held were horrible, and much worse for a woman”
Imprisoned for nearly six months in inhuman conditions until the fall of Bashar al-Assad on 8 December 2024, journalist Hanin Gibran has returned to writing in a transformed country, but where her independence as a woman journalist continues to be a struggle. To mark International Women's Rights Day, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for justice for women journalists persecuted by the former regime.
Sitting in a café in Old Damascus, journalist Hanin Gebran talks fearlessly about her investigations carried out during the last years of Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship, in a clandestinity that seems so long ago. Working for the exiled opposition media Syria Monitor and Syria TV, the 26-year-old reporter has infiltrated Iranian production companies based in the Syrian capital, and investigated the embezzlement of aid intended for the families of wounded and dead fighters of the pro-regime National Defence Forces.
The extreme sensitivity of the subjects covered by the investigative journalist fell under the scrutiny of the former Syrian dictatorship. “Anyone who puts forward ideas is much more dangerous in their eyes than anyone who carries a gun,” she points out. On 23 June 2024, while working in a cybercafé in the capital, Hanin Gibran was abducted by young men and women in plain clothes in an unmarked van. The journalist was subsequently imprisoned and tortured in one of the country's most dreaded political prisons, located at Mazzeh air base in Damascus and controlled by the air force intelligence services.
“The courage and determination of investigative journalist Hanin Gibran command respect. Her account of her detention conditions inspires awe and outrage. Such a tragedy must never be made commonplace, despite the scale of the repression that has hit journalists under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. RSF salutes the journalist’s work and calls for justice for the atrocities suffered during her detention. RSF continues to investigate in order to identify those responsible for the ill-treatment inflicted during her interrogations and keeps fighting against impunity for all crimes committed against journalists by the former regime.
Women journalists are victims of the worst detention conditions
The cruelty of the journalist's jailers seems boundless. For nearly six months in detention, Hanin Gibran says she was subjected to violent interrogations on an almost daily basis. She was beaten, subjected to corporal punishment, deprived of food. “I was about to die,” she describes, referring to a serious haemorrhage caused by these violences. Her torturers transferred her to Qatana prison, then to Adra, on the outskirts of Damascus, where she received blood transfusions.
“The conditions of confinement were horrible for journalists. And for a woman, they were much worse than for men,” Hanin Gibran told RSF. “The sexual insults from fellow inmates and inspectors hurt me both psychologically and morally, much more than the beatings and torture.”
Cyber-harrassed and attacked
Since her release on 8 December 2024, with the regime's fall, the reporter has discovered a transformed country, but where the weight of her independence continues to be heavy to bear. While she has cut off all relations with her family, due to her father and brother's support for the former dictatorship, Hanin Gibran has been facing a smear campaign on social media for several weeks now. Users are denouncing the affiliation of her relatives with the former regime and calling on the media employing her to cease all collaboration. “Hanin no longer had any links with her family and even lived alone,” the director and owner of the Syria Monitor news website Eyas al-Mohammad says. “She has my full support and we will continue to work with her as a correspondent in Damascus.”
“In the male-dominated media sector, we face attempts to silence women journalists and make them invisible,” Hanin Gibran says. But these attacks do not change anything. The journalist abandoned the clandestinity forced upon her during the former regime to become one of the faces of Syria TV.
