Features
Syrian doctors face government wrath
Three doctors reportedly arrrested for treating wounded protesters amid
security crackdown.
Last Modified: 26 Apr 2011 14:14
Three doctors from the private-run Hamdan hospital in Douma, the town in the
Damascus countryside that has been a centre of protest, were arrested by the
secret service on Monday night, according to two trusted sources.
The arrested included the director of the hospital, Dr Hosam Hamdan.
According to the first source, an activist in the area, the doctors had been
arrested because they had disobeyed orders from the secret police to refuse
treatment to protesters wounded in the armed crackdown by security forces.
As Al Jazeera reported on Friday, residents of Douma formed a human shield
around the Hamdan hospital in an effort to prevent secret police breaking in
and taking away the dead and dying.
"This is the last way we have to protect our wounded from being kidnapped by
secret service," said the second source, who took part in the human shield
around the Hamdan hospital on Friday.
"We held the line until live fire was used and we had to run and hide. I saw
the secret police break into the hospital and later when I went back to the
hospital some of the bodies and some of the injured were missing."
Fear of arrest
The source said doctors had been asking residents not to bring the wounded to
the Hamdan hospital unless they were in a critical condition, fearing the
secret police would try to arrest the injured inside the hospital, and take
them away to a security prison or the military-run Tishreen hospital.
Similarly, doctors at hospitals and clinics in Homs, the Damascus neighbourhood
of Berze, and Jableh, on the coast, have been told unofficially by secret
police not to treat wounded protesters, according to doctors and residents of
those cities who have spoken to Al Jazeera.
Since Sunday at least 13 people have been killed and dozens wounded in attacks
by secret police and armed thugs in Jableh, a small city on Syria's
Mediterranean coast, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The dead and dying were taken to the Hamwi mosque in this coastal city, a
doctor who gave his name as Dr Amer, told Al Jazeera.
"We can't trust the state owned hospital because if we go there security could
come in and finish them off," he said. "We can't even get to the pharmacy to
get medicine because there are snipers on roofs. All I can do is try and stop
the bleeding."
Dr Amer has since gone into hiding since security services were looking for him.
According to two sources who reached friends of the doctor, security forces had
surrounded his home and threatened his wife unless the doctor gave himself up.
A close friend of Dr Amer speaking to Al Jazeera on Tuesday said he had been
unable to contact the doctor since Sunday and feared he had been arrested and
killed. A second eyewitness in Jableh also said he had been unable to contact
the doctor for the past two days.
In Maadamiya, a southern suburb of Damascus, a doctor told Al Jazeera he had
begun treating injured protesters inside people's homes rather than take them
to hospital, after secret police beat an injured a 13-year-old as his father
tried to get him to hospital.
Military lockdown
"No one from Maadamiya wants to take their wounded to the hospital. Last
Friday, a father tried to get his son to a small private hospital in Dariya, a
town next to Maadamiya. The security men began to beat him with wooden sticks
and didn't allow the emergency section to hospitalise the 13 year old. The boy
who was dying in front of his father eyes."
The boy died soon after, said the doctor, having been unable to get treatment
for his gunshot wound. The doctor said he was treating gunshot wounds to the
head without anything like adequate medicine.
"No one can go to the private and public hospitals and health centres. Security
is arresting the people who are hospitalised, the wounded protesters, and
taking them to security branches and we don't know where they are now," he said.
"I try to help with simple tools, but I can't do big surgeries. I can stop the
bleeding and sew wounds, but not more. The army has many checkpoints around
Maadamiya and they don't allow anyone to get even some alcohol and antibiotics
here."
Similarly, Douma has been under a tight military lockdown since Monday,
according to the local activist. No public transport is running between Douma
and Damascus, with as many as seven checkpoints set up on the road between
them. Mobile and fixed phone lines were cut for long periods as was internet
access.
Reports from activists in Damascus said as many as 15 residents had been
arrested in Douma on Monday, though the exact figure was impossible to verify.
Eyewitnesses reported snipers on the rooftops and security men patrolling every
neighbourhood.
According to the local activist, worshippers at dawn prayer on Monday were
forced by secret police to leave the mosque in pairs rather than all together,
in an apparent attempt to prevent large crowds gathering.
Source:
Al Jazeera
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