Karam Jamal Al Hamad looks south out the window of a Syracuse hotel lobby toward the Syracuse University campus. There’s a blank look on his face. He speaks quietly, but with passion.

“(SU) might’ve known that I don’t have a passport because of what is happening in Syria,” he says. “That I am wanted by the regime.”

He turns to look at the fireplace in the center of the room. The look remains the same: calm, poised and safe. He’s more than 5,000 miles away from havoc.

Hamad is wanted by the Syrian government for being outspoken against the Bashar al-Assad regime. He’s been arrested four times already. Now he’s in the U.S. and, at the age of 24, the youngest member of the Leaders for Democracy Fellowship at SU, a program based out of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He arrived on campus in late March.

Hamad said past experiences have inspired him to continue to try and do what’s best for his country, and he’ll try taking what he learns at SU and using it to improve Syria.

**

Hamad is an activist— it’s in his blood.

When he was young, his father would hold meetings inside their house to discuss the handling of oil in Hamad’s hometown of Deir al-Zour. The city was filled with oil, but no money from it was entering Syria — it was only going to other countries and the regime’s plans.

Hamad was an intelligent student — one of the most gifted in the city. Because of that, he received a camera and an Internet account, open for a year, from the first lady of Syria, Asma al-Assad.

His father would ask his son to use the Internet to find information about Syria, to help their opposition movement.

“I found lots of things about democracy in Europe, democracy in the United States and I began to question: ‘What’s going on?’” Hamad said.

In his first year at Al-Furat University, he founded a magazine on campus with a few friends that published using their own money. At the time, publications had to have quotations from al-Assad about Syria. Hamad’s publication did not. Instead he put hidden political messages with notes against the regime in poems and other pieces of the magazine.

In March 2011, he did something experts say often leads to arrest: He shouted.

It’s common for Syrians to be arrested for shouting anti-regime sayings in the street, said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, the chair of the department of political science at SU who specializes in the Middle East.

Hamad continued to grow the opposition movement and on March 28, 2011, he sent a fellow opposition leader a message: “Today I felt the meaning of life. I shouted in the street freely.”

**

Hamad is a refugee.

He went to Turkey to work for an opposition government of Syria and is now one of about a million Syrian refugees in Turkey. Every 15 seconds, a Syrian citizen becomes a refugee, Boroujerdi said. The Syrian conflict has been described by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis of this era, he added.

The Syrian uprising began in March 2011, the month Hamad yelled in the street. The conflict remains ongoing, and nationwide protests against al-Assad were met with violent responses, including the use of chemical weapons.

The demographics of Syria are one of the main drivers for why the conflict is happening now, said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has a focus on Syria. The minority-led regime and the lack of political development in the country have also caused problems, he added.

Said Tabler: “It’s a bit of authoritarian karma.”

** 

Hamad is a survivor.

He’s been arrested four different times, and has seen a majority of fellow prisoners—some of which were in for anti-regime beliefs— die.

When the uprising was about five months old, Hamad was arrested for the first time for taking part in anti-regime demonstrations. He was in jail for one day. 

The second arrest came three months later when he was accused of coordinating demonstrations against the regime and spent 70 days in jail.

Prisoners were two floors underground, with 70 people in a single small room. They were abused and beaten, Hamad said.

“Some of them died in jail for things less than (shouting),” he said.

Maltreatment and even torturing people to death all happen in Syrian jails, said Tabler, the Syrian expert. After seeing all that took place in the prisons, Hamad said he wanted to fight not just for himself, but for others in the movement.

In an effort to do that, Hamad signed a contract with Reuters following the creation of a Facebook page that published photos of demonstrations and destruction caused by the regime.

“I found that media could be a more powerful weapon than guns and I could tell the world, ‘Look, that’s what’s happening in Syria,’” he said.

It was between his third and fourth arrests when he met Peter Kassig, an American aid worker. Hamad soon befriended Kassig.

Kassig was captured in 2013 by the Islamic State and beheaded in November 2014.

Hamad felt like “hell” when he saw the photo of Kassig’s beheading, he said. “He wasn’t afraid of dying. But to die, under their hands…,” Hamad said, trailing off.

The fourth arrest resulted in Hamad’s longest imprisonment of about 11 months.

In the room Hamad was imprisoned in, 73 of the 120 prisoners died, including a man Hamad befriended in jail. The friend was in shock, couldn’t remember his own name and his body temperature skyrocketed.

“Two days later, he died,” Hamad said, pausing. “He died on my chest.”

Hamad got out in July 2014, but because of the torture, there were times he felt like he would never leave the jail.

“I’m going to die, I thought,” he added. “But I had to fight to finally get out, they wouldn’t let me go, but I had to fight.”

**

Hamad is seeking change in Syria.

It’s been about 250 days since he’s been in jail. His four arrests prevented him from continuing to study petroleum engineering in Syria, which he studied because of what he said he saw during his childhood —the Assad regime taking advantage of his city’s oil exports.

Hamad read about the Leaders for Democracy Fellowship online and started sending emails through the U.S. Consulate about the fellowship earlier this year. The importance of democracy at Maxwell played a key role in Hamad wanting to come to SU, he said.

“It was like a dream that I can’t let go,” he said. “Democracy is important to me because it gives everyone in a society his rights. It gives you… a better way of life.”

The fellowship started on March 23, but he missed the first few days because of passport problems. While in the U.S., he plans to spread what’s happening in Syria through photos he’s taken and sharing his experiences.

But when the fellowship ends, Hamad wants to take what he’s learned and go back and better his country.

“For the first time in my life, I feel like a student. I feel like I’m going to obtain something good for my country,” Hamad said. “I hope that I will be able to spread the things I’m learning here and make an impact.”

Published on April 8, 2015 at 11:02 pm

Contact Justin: jmatting@syr.edu | @jmattingly306