The MENA Prison Forum (MPF), medico international, and HAU Hebbel am Ufer, in collaboration with the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, are pleased to invite you to the first event of the series “Understanding Prison: MENA Prison Forum in Berlin." This first event is focused on historical and contemporary prison dynamics in Syria. 

The event will take place at 19:00 on 27 November at the HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU 1) in Berlin.

For tickets, please visit: https://hebbel-am-ufer-tickets.reservix.de/p/reservix/event/2314923. 

19:00 Welcome by representatives of HAU Hebbel am Ufer, MENA Prison Forum, and medico international

19:15 Concert: "Music behind Sednaya's Bars: Performing Songs from Sednaya Prison in Syria (1980s-1990s)” 

With Asaad Shlash, Ibrahim Byrakdar, Kesra Kurdi, Haitham Alkatreb, Hassan Abd Alrahman, and Adnan Hassan

Introduction by Eylaf Bader Eddin

Arabic with English subtitles 

Thirty years ago, to counter the oppressive background noise in the cells of the notorious Sednaya prison in Syria, a group of political prisoners formed a music group within the prison. They built their instruments from leftover food, clothing threads, and other prison materials, whispering and secretly playing their songs. After several decades, six musicians are coming together again and performing live for the first time in public on replicas of the instruments they built in prison. The concert aims to highlight forms of resistance and survival that were developed as counters to the abject horrors of the Syrian prison system.

20:00 Talk: “Syria between Prison, Exile and Accountability”

With Yassin Al-Haj Saleh (Syrian author), Lynn Maalouf (Office of the UN Special Envoy for Syria), and Joumana Seif (European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights)

Moderation by Bente Scheller (Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung) 

English and Arabic with English and Arabic simultaneous translation

The panelists will discuss both the long history of imprisonment, torture, and human rights violations in Syria and the new dimensions of these dynamics since the bloody suppression of the 2011 revolution and throughout the ongoing civil war. The panelists will address the connection between prison and exile, the continual use of repressive tactics in Syria, and various possible and needed paths towards justice and accountability for those affected. 

The MENA Prison Forum, an initiative of UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R), is dedicated to researching prison culture in the MENA region. It is an interdisciplinary international network that includes former prisoners, filmmakers, academics, artists, activists, and human rights organizations from various countries around the region. Together with medico international and HAU, the MPF is organizing a series of events in Berlin to promote critical and continual engagement on carceral conditions and dynamics in the MENA region. 

Yassin Al-Haj Saleh is a Syrian writer and translator. He has authored books on Syria, prison, contemporary Islam, Arab intellectuals and intellectual life, and experiences of the atrocious. He is a founding member of the electronic magazine Al-Jumhuriya (aljumhuriya.net). He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

Lynn Maalouf is a human rights advocate with over 15 years of experience related to conflict and post-conflict justice issues. Since August 2022, she has been serving as Senior Human Rights Officer with the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Syria. Between 2016 and 2022 she was Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa program, covering the Levant and Gulf states and including the ongoing conflicts at the time in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Previously she was engaged in research, advocacy, teaching, and community programming work that focused on Lebanon’s post-conflict setting, with a focus on the issue of the missing and disappeared. She conducted this work working with the International Center for Transitional Justice, both heading its country program from 2007-2011 and subsequently as a senior researcher, and with Lebanese and Syrian organizations.

Dr. Bente Scheller has been the Head of the Middle East and North Africa Division of the Heinrich Böll Foundation since September 2019. From 2012 to 2019, she headed the Heinrich Böll Foundation's office in Lebanon, while she previously headed the Foundation's office in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2012. She was a counselor at the German Embassy in Syria from 2002 to 2004. She is the author of "The Wisdom of Syria's Waiting Game: Foreign Policy Under the Assads" published in 2013.

Joumana Seif is a Syrian lawyer and a feminist. She is a legal advisor in the International Crimes and Accountability program at the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights ECCHR, with a particular focus on Syria and sexual and gender-based violence. She is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Middle East, Strategic Litigation Program. She has been working in the human rights field since 2001 and supporting the democratic movements in Syria with a focus on political prisoners. She left Syria in 2012, a year after the start of the uprising against the Assad regime. Since then, she has cofounded the Syrian Women’s Network (2013), the Syrian Feminist Lobby (2014), and the Syrian Women’s Political Movement (2017).