Syria's Women Prisoners, Drawn By An Artist Who Was One

Azza Abo Rebieh got her guards to give her pencils and paper, then began sketching the faces and habits of fellow inmates in Syria’s notorious detention system.

- Lina Sinjab and Anne Barnard

BEIRUT — This is Hiam, a 65 -year-old woman smoking a cigarette and sipping matteh, a warm herbal drink popular in Syria. It is a moment of sol i tude in a soul-crushing place; the bed is a prison bed. Hiam spent 2 1/2 years in prison, most likely for the simple reason that she came from an area that rebelled against President Bashar Assad’s government.

The artist who drew her, Azza Abo Rebieh, was one of 30 women sharing a cell with Hiam in the Adra prison in Damascus. Then 36, Abo Rebieh was on her own surreal journey through the Syrian security system, detained because of her art and her activism.Abo Rebieh’s artwork, from the start of Syria’s uprising in 2011, held up a mirror to a society in turmoil. Risking arrest, she painted graffiti murals about the protest movement. After security forces cracked down and some in the opposition took up arms, she helped smuggle food and medicine to people displaced by fighting.

In September 2015, Abo Rebieh received a call from an activist friend asking her to meet at a cafe. It was a trap: When she arrived, security was waiting. Abo Rebieh, a member of the educated middle class, found herself imprisoned with women who were barely literate, and mostly arrested at random. She became a kind of spokeswoman and sounding board, conveying their needs and requests to guards and helping them talk through experiences. Her art then became a mirror for fellow prisoners who had none: She drew them so they could see themselves. She drew them all in shaded black and white, their grimacing faces and thin limbs influenced by one of her favorite artists, Goya.