Hamza al-Khatib becomes the symbol of the revolution
Syria’s bloody revolution has a new face: a 13-year-old boy named Hamza al-Khatib, who was brutally tortured and killed by Syrian security forces. Al-Khatib was captured by security forces on April 29; nearly one month later, on May 27, his badly mutilated corpse was released to his family. They were told to stay silent, the Guardian reports. According to human rights activists, Al-Khatib’s body showed a broken neck, bullet wounds in his arms, black eyes, cuts, marks consistent with electric shock devices, bruises, whip marks, and his penis had been cut off. His violent death has brought into sharp reality the brutality of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.