Local refugee women who were detained and tortured for calling for freedom in Syria will be sharing their experiences at a special event in Lancaster.

One of the women, Maison, was part of the peaceful democracy movement calling for freedom in Syria which led to the arrest and detention of hundreds of thousands of civilians and led to the brutal military crackdown and conflict, causing millions of Syrians to seek refuge in neighbouring countries, then further afield.

Maison spent time in a detention centre where she was tortured and witnessed the torture, rape and murder of other detainees.

When she was released she vowed to bring the voices of the detainees to the world’s attention.

Maison, who will be speaking about her experiences at a special event on December 10.

placeholder image — Maison, who will be speaking about her experiences at a special event on December 10.

She will now be exhibiting distressing photos from Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad’s notorious detention centres and will share her experiences of detention on Tuesday December 10 for International Human Rights Day.

Maison said: “It is important for people like me to speak for those who did not survive."

With support from education charity Global Link, Maison is hosting the exhibition of photographs which were presented at the Holocaust Museum in New York and to the Scottish Parliament in 2019 to highlight the detention and torture of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians.

In August 2013, a military defector code-named Caesar smuggled 53,275 photographs out of Syria, documenting the human rights abuses by the Syrian government and military.

Fifteen of these photos will be shared at the event, and the people who helped smuggle Caesar and the photos out of Syria will join the public talk on Zoom from the USA at 4pm.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the arrest and detention of more than 117,000 people in Syria since March 2011. Many prisoners die from conditions so dire that a United Nations investigation labelled the process “extermination”.

Global Link's Gisela Renolds said: “While there may be very little we can do in the UK about dictatorship, torture and war in Syria, we can at least continue to provide sanctuary for those able to make the often perilous journey to our shores.

"December 10 is International Human Rights Day, which marks the anniversary of the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document enshrining the inalienable rights that everyone is entitled to as a human being and includes the right to seek asylum from persecution in another country.”

Photos will be displayed from noon at the Friends Meeting House, with the presentation to follow from 4pm.

The women will be supported by a Syrian journalist, now himself a refugee, working for the BBC.