The Face of the Syrian Revolution
In today’s newsletter, Jon Lee Anderson reports from Damascus on shocking new evidence about the Syrian police state. Plus:
Hamada spent years describing to Western officials the torment that he and countless others—including Motasem Kattan, above—had endured in Syrian prisons. Since the regime fell, the evidence of a ruthless police state has grown overwhelming.Photographs by Moises Saman / Magnum for The New Yorker
A Witness in Assad’s Dungeons
Mazen al-Hamada fled Syria to reveal the regime’s crimes. Then, mysteriously, he went back.
For years, as the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad maintained his brutal grip on the country, a former political prisoner named Mazen al-Hamada emerged as a spokesman for the regime’s victims, having escaped to the West and testified widely of the unspeakable treatment that he and his fellow-prisoners had endured. But, after seemingly suffering a mental break, Hamada returned to Syria in 2020 and was promptly arrested by the government, never to be seen alive again. After rebels liberated Damascus, in December, Hamada’s body was discovered in the morgue of a military hospital. A coroner had found that he had died of “the shock of pain.”
In remarkable reporting from Syria, beginning in the days following Assad’s ouster, Jon Lee Anderson details how Hamada became a martyr of the revolution, and documents the experiences of former captives returning to the places of their confinement, where Assad’s prison guards fleeing their posts had left behind evidence of mass human-rights violations and of the scope of the state’s system of violence. Read or listen to the story »
Further reading: Ben Taub met with Hamada in 2016, in a hotel room near Amsterdam, where they discussed the activist’s efforts in the lead-up to the revolution.
The First Days of Trump 2.0
U.S. Customs and Border Protection patrols the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump recently announced he plans to rename the Gulf of America.Photograph by Peter van Agtmael / Magnum
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The Gulf of America: Residents and politicians in Alaska fought for years to redesignate Mount McKinley, named for an unremarkable President who had never visited the peak, as Denali. Then, as one of his first tasks in office, Donald Trump undid their work. He also made the even bolder move to rechristen the Gulf of Mexico. Jessica Winter considers how these moves reflect the primal power of naming.
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The imperial Presidency: Designs on Greenland, promises to take back the Panama Canal, threats of tariffs on countries ranging from Colombia to Taiwan—how did a President who once pledged isolationism become so grasping? Isaac Chotiner interviews the historian Greg Grandin about the roots of Trump’s aggressive expansionism.
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A deep freeze: The White House budget office issued a memo yesterday ordering government agencies to pause funding in the form of grants, loans, and other financial-assistance programs. The demanded freeze could cut off some federal support for local governments, as well as spending on disaster relief, education, infrastructure, and public health. Today, a group of Senate Democrats called the plan unconstitutional, and promised a series of legal challenges; state governments are expected to file suit as well. Read Jeannie Suk Gersen on the growing crisis of Trump’s use of executive power.
More Top Stories
Daily Cartoon
“Apparently, there’s a new Chinese A.I. company that can much more cheaply make us have to hear about A.I.”
Cartoon by Adam Douglas Thompson
More Fun & Games
P.S. How does a skyscraper get tagged six hundred feet up? In this week’s Talk of the Town, Jake Offenhartz follows a pair of graffiti artists as they show off their rock-climbing training. And, for more on the public art form, read this classic piece by Calvin Tomkins, from 1984, about how graffiti conquered the world. 🧗
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