Wejdan Nassif, a friend and former cellmate of Samira al-Khalil, the Syrian democracy activist imprisoned by Hafez al-Assad and then abducted by Islamists, recalls their time together inside and outside prison.

In a talk co-organized by the assassinated activist Lokman Slim, former Syrian political prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh argues that “the politics of prison” are central to understanding the “politicide” of the Syrian people at the Assad regime’s hands.

[Editor’s note: The below article was produced as part of Al-Jumhuriya’s 2017 Fellowship for Young Writers. It was originally published in Arabic on 6 July, 2018.] In the city of Qudsaya, about ten kilometers from Damascus and 45 minutes from the center of the capital, there is a walled area of approximately 5,000 square meters. Today, around 140 children are confined within its perimeter. They…

[Editor’s note: The below article was produced as part of Al-Jumhuriya’s 2017 Fellowship for Young Writers. It was originally published in Arabic on 11 January, 2018.] It’s two o’clock in the morning, the lights are turned off, and I’ve been in a deep sleep for two hours now. Although nighttime in prison is not much different from daytime, even if it could be said to…

At a recent talk in California, Charles Davis encountered a microcosm of the left’s rupture on Syria.

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Arabic on 10 July, 2017] Is it possible for beautiful things to happen in prison? At first, you would expect to answer this question, containing a contradiction in its very structure, with no. But I, without considering myself hasty, and through my own personal experience (along with many of my friends), will answer with no hesitation that…