Salvation O Boys: 16 Years in Syrian prisons

Salvation O Boys: 16 Years in Syrian prisons by: Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, Beirut: Dar Al-Saqi, 2012. A new book by the renowned Syrian thinker and writer, Yassin Al-HaJ Saleh, is just released from Dar Al-Saqi in Beirut, entitled Bilkhalas Ya Shabab (Salvation O Boys: 16 Years in Syrian prisons). Saleh, who resides now in Syria and considered on of the most famous Syrian writers participating in the revolution narrates his experience in the Syrian detentions for 16 years since he was arrested on the 80’s while he was a student in the faculty of medicine. The author was charged for being a member of an opposition party and he was sentenced for 15 years that he spent between the terrifying Syrian intelligence prisons. After Saleh spent his prison time for 15 years, Syrian authorities asked him to spy on the Syrian opposition. Saleh refused that thus the authorities decided to jail him for one extra year in Tadmor prison, one of the most fierce and terrifying Syrian prisons, where Syrian regime used to torture his opponents especially the writers and intellectuals. Saleh describes the year that he spent on Tadmor as “year from hell”. The author finds a chance in the revolution taking place in Syria since March 2011, to narrate his horrible experience in detention as a thinker and writer, which he could not write about before the revolution. The book is his second release after the Syrian revolution as he published another book titles Walking on one leg that he published earlier this year, and he sheds light on this book on the social and political contexts of the Syrian revolution Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, 51, a Syrian thinker, writer and former political prisoner, spent 16 years in the Syrian regime’s prisons during the 1980s and 1990s. He is a regular contributor to various Arabic newspapers and periodicals, including a weekly column in ‘Al-Hayat’ newspaper issued from London. He published two books after he was released from prison in 1997, “Syria from the shadow: Glimpses Inside the Black Box” and “Myths of the Others: Criticizing Contemporary Islam and Criticizing its Criticism.”