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Following are excerpts from an interview with Syrian blogger Milad 'Umran, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on June 24, 2011:
Milad 'Umran: Each and every one of us [Syrians] has dozens of stories about people who disappeared, people who were tortured, people who… Stories about the things the intelligence agency did to the Syrian people… Each of us has such stories. I have images seared in my memory. All these things are taboo, things that cannot be talked about, but they exist within us.
I remember, for instance, that when I was five years old, I saw our neighbor… This is an image that is indelibly seared in my memory. I saw our neighbor when he came to visit my father. He had just been [released] from detention. I don't know what he did. Chances are he did nothing. He showed my dad the marks on his back. I was only five years old. He lifted his shirt and showed my dad what they did to him. His back was… It's impossible to imagine that anybody, even a criminal, would do something like that to another human being.
We have been waiting for this moment our entire lives. The [uprising] is something we expected would happen, and we expected that it would exact a high toll. Every tyrant would fight to the death.
The truth has come out, and they can no longer hide it. It is documented and brought to life through the cell phones of eye-witnesses, and the thousands who participated in the demonstrations. Only 1% [of what happened] has come to light. Heinous things took place there. We have seen the true face of the regime.
Perhaps only 1% of these images have been uploaded to the Internet, but these things will emerge for the whole world to see. More importantly, it should be seen within Syria. When we upload a video to the Internet, it is for our own people to see, not [just] the world. We should never rely on the world to bring about change for us. If our people does not bring about change, nothing will change.