:00:09. > :00:15.This is a story of incredible bravery hidden from the outside
:00:15. > :00:20.world. Where 3,000 civilians and hundreds
:00:20. > :00:24.of troops have been killed. And where children have been
:00:24. > :00:29.targeted. I could hear people's anguish and the cries, it was
:00:29. > :00:34.constant. It's the bloodiest upridesing of the Arab Spring.
:00:34. > :00:39.situation on the ground, it's crimes against humanity. After
:00:39. > :00:49.Egypt and Libya, will Syria's President be next to fall? Or will
:00:49. > :00:59.the world continue to stand by? Tonight, pictures never seen before
:00:59. > :01:16.
:01:16. > :01:19.and testimonies, from inside the This is Deraa in southern Syria,
:01:19. > :01:29.home to nearly 80,000 people, it used to be a bustling commercial
:01:29. > :01:39.centre. Today, it's a Ghost Town. There are soldiers on the streets.
:01:39. > :01:43.
:01:43. > :01:48.They've set up their barracks in a Young men from Deraa are filming
:01:48. > :01:56.this secretly, risking their lives. Hundreds of people have been killed
:01:56. > :02:03.here. Thousands are missing. For months now, activists have been
:02:03. > :02:06.using tiny cameras, ingeniously hidden in cars and clothes.
:02:06. > :02:10.TRANSLATION: We're putting the camera into these holes to film the
:02:10. > :02:20.security forces around the mosques. They'll be attacking the protesters
:02:20. > :02:27.when they leave for prayers. This young man calls himself Abu Mahmoud.
:02:27. > :02:33.We can't reveal his true identity. He's filmed many protests. This one
:02:33. > :02:37.happened a few months ago at a checkpoint on the edge of Deraa.
:02:37. > :02:41.TRANSLATION: When we approached the checkpoint everyone was holding up
:02:41. > :02:44.their phones. Opposite us the security people had their guns. The
:02:44. > :02:54.feeling was our weapon is the camera and making a record of all
:02:54. > :02:56.
:02:56. > :03:06.this. Without warning, the security forces opened fire. One man filming
:03:06. > :03:08.
:03:08. > :03:12.is hit. 30 people are killed, dozens wounded on this one day.
:03:12. > :03:22.TRANSLATION: I was always afraid, fearing death, but what kept me
:03:22. > :03:28.
:03:28. > :03:31.going was the spirit of the people. I've been to the country's
:03:31. > :03:36.boredering series to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to find out what
:03:36. > :03:42.Deraa has been through since it defied Syria's rulers six months
:03:42. > :03:47.ago. I've been talking to people who've come out to meet me., to
:03:47. > :03:57.victims and to refugees. Witnesses, they say, to terrible abuses back
:03:57. > :04:01.
:04:01. > :04:06.The town of Deraa is just four miles from the border with Jordan.
:04:06. > :04:11.But this is as far as we can get. Almost all the foreign media's been
:04:11. > :04:15.shut out, barred from reporting what's going on inside Syria. But
:04:15. > :04:18.the people here have refused to be silenced. They've been taking their
:04:18. > :04:26.own pictures and speaking out about the torture and killing. This is
:04:26. > :04:31.their story. It all began in March at this
:04:31. > :04:37.school in Deraa. A group of children, some as young as 11, were
:04:37. > :04:47.arrested for scribbling graffiti, criticises the Assad regime. They
:04:47. > :04:48.
:04:48. > :04:53.were held for two weeks by state security. And they were tortured.
:04:53. > :04:58.This demonstration on March 18, to demand the children's release,
:04:58. > :05:03.sparked Syria's revolution. We've cross checked the footage we've
:05:03. > :05:09.obtained from Deraa to put the story together for the first time.
:05:09. > :05:19.On that day, security forces fired on the crowd, killing at least four
:05:19. > :05:21.
:05:21. > :05:27.people, the first to die in Syria's Thousands of ordinary people took
:05:27. > :05:37.to the streets for the funerals. Now, the protests were about
:05:37. > :05:42.
:05:42. > :05:48.Deraa hadn't benefited from the spoils handed out to cronies of the
:05:48. > :05:54.ruling elite. People attacked a statue of the President's father
:05:54. > :06:03.and other symbols of the government. The video shows security forces on
:06:03. > :06:08.rooftops firing at unarmed civilians. More people were killed.
:06:08. > :06:13.One foreign journalist, a Jordanian, had managed to get into the city.
:06:13. > :06:19.At every junkure when the authorities became even more heavy
:06:19. > :06:26.handed, to clamp down on these protests, and there were killings,
:06:26. > :06:30.it almost snowballed. The images that come to mind is a popular,
:06:30. > :06:37.spontaneous uprising. It's just almost like something that you read
:06:37. > :06:44.from text books about the great revolutions of the world.
:06:44. > :06:50.From the start, the om arery mosque in Deraa was the centre of the
:06:50. > :06:55.protest. Posters of the dead were displayed on its walls. A Taxi
:06:55. > :07:00.Driver from Deraa lives near the mosque. He risked his life to meet
:07:00. > :07:08.me on the border. We cannot show his face. He was there on the night
:07:08. > :07:13.of the 23rd of March, when security forces attacked.
:07:13. > :07:17.TRANSLATION: People came from all across town and despite the
:07:17. > :07:22.shooting, encircled the Omari mosque. The crowds grew and the
:07:22. > :07:27.numbers of security forces grew. They began to shoot intensively.
:07:28. > :07:32.The attack on the mosque wents on for two more days.
:07:32. > :07:35.TRANSLATION: The young men resisted with stones and sticks. They had no
:07:36. > :07:43.weapons. They didn't have knives or anything. They were just trying to
:07:43. > :07:50.defend themselves with stones. the army finally seized the mosque,
:07:50. > :07:55.they'd killed at least 60 people, according to local activists. Some
:07:55. > :08:01.of the dead were the wounded being treated inside the mosque. People
:08:01. > :08:07.were afraid to go to the hospitals. TRANSLATION: Anyone wounded in the
:08:07. > :08:15.hospitals was taken by the security forces. If he was close to death,
:08:15. > :08:21.they'd just finish him off. Even for those who made it to the
:08:21. > :08:31.private clinics, it was often too late. One man died just after he
:08:31. > :08:47.
:08:47. > :08:52.When the soldiers seized the mosque, they made their own trophy videos.
:08:52. > :09:02.They were posted online. They swore to fight for the President and the
:09:02. > :09:11.
:09:11. > :09:15.Bashar Al-Assad has led Syria for 11 years, since he inherited the
:09:15. > :09:20.presidency from his father, who'd ruled with an iron grip for three
:09:20. > :09:27.decades. There were high hopes Assad would reform this police
:09:27. > :09:29.state. He trained as an eye doctor in London, with his glamorous
:09:29. > :09:35.British-born wife, the Syrian leader was courted in the Blair
:09:35. > :09:39.years. It's important to engage with Syria, because Syria is going
:09:39. > :09:43.to be an important part of building a peaceful and stable future in the
:09:43. > :09:49.Middle East. But that was all wishful thinking, after what
:09:49. > :09:54.happened in Daraa. President Assad was quick to claim a foreign
:09:54. > :10:00.conspiracy was behind the violence. It was being carried out by armed
:10:00. > :10:03.criminals and terrorists, he said. Did you see any armed opposition
:10:03. > :10:07.within the demonstrations or any criminals or terrorists, as the
:10:08. > :10:12.government alleged they were facing? Almost two weeks I was
:10:12. > :10:17.there, I only saw more and more ordinary Daraa residents coming to
:10:17. > :10:21.the streets. That's not just youths. It was women, children, more and
:10:21. > :10:28.more people on the streets. Peacefully? Peacefully, peacefully.
:10:28. > :10:36.Not armed? Not armed. Army's Fourth Division had been
:10:36. > :10:44.sent to Daraa. This unit, commanded by the President's brother, had
:10:44. > :10:54.brutally suppressed political People took extraordinary risks,
:10:54. > :11:05.
:11:05. > :11:14.It wasn't the army as a whole. It was the security forces and this
:11:14. > :11:21.particular division of the army, led by Maher al-Assad. People
:11:21. > :11:24.talked about the ruthlessness. regime was threatened as the
:11:24. > :11:29.protests spread from Daraa to the capital Damascus and then to many
:11:29. > :11:37.town as cross the country. -- town as cross the country. Some
:11:37. > :11:40.had a history of rebellion, ethnic and religion -- religious tensions.
:11:40. > :11:44.There's more at stake in this tension than any of the uprisings
:11:44. > :11:50.across the Middle East this year. Syria has influence over fragile
:11:50. > :11:54.Lebanon and Syria holds the key to peace with Israel. Assad's greatest
:11:54. > :12:01.ally is Iran. If the Syrian regime falls it will affect the whole
:12:01. > :12:07.future of the region. I travelled to Turkey and the camp
:12:07. > :12:17.as long the Syrian border to talk to an activist from Daraa. Omar al
:12:17. > :12:20.
:12:20. > :12:27.Mukdad is now a refugee here, like But in April, Omar and his secret
:12:27. > :12:31.network in Daraa were using the internet to defy the regime. They
:12:31. > :12:37.want to take the revolution offline and finish this by killing people.
:12:37. > :12:43.But the sich in Daraa on the grounds, it's the crimes against
:12:43. > :12:46.humanity. In Syria, medical staff have suffered some of the most
:12:46. > :12:55.shocking violence. In Daraa security forces even targeted
:12:55. > :12:59.ambulances. As you see here, this is the ambulance. An activist
:12:59. > :13:08.filmed the moment when security forces shot directly through the
:13:08. > :13:18.windscreen. They shoot him twice. They kill him. They've killed the
:13:18. > :13:20.
:13:20. > :13:28.person inside the ambulance, the The video was smuggled out and
:13:28. > :13:33.posted on the internet. People are desperate, they're shouting. What
:13:33. > :13:37.are they shouting? They say "This is Daraa today. This is Daraa today.
:13:37. > :13:47.They killed him." Through March and April, there was a rule of fear in
:13:47. > :13:51.
:13:51. > :14:01.The security forces stormed the streets. Men were being rounded up
:14:01. > :14:17.
:14:17. > :14:25.for interrogation. Bodies were The Jordanian journalist was one of
:14:25. > :14:28.those arrested. Suleiman was expelled from Syria. But first he
:14:28. > :14:34.was interrogated in a notorious prison, where many people from
:14:34. > :14:41.Deraa were taken. I saw a young man who had been dangled from his feet.
:14:41. > :14:51.He had saliva on his mouth. There almost beastly sounds coming out of
:14:51. > :14:52.
:14:52. > :14:56.him. I saw someone who was also electrified. In April, the
:14:56. > :15:02.President promised to lift the state of emergency clamped on the
:15:02. > :15:09.country for 30 years. He said he would bring in reform. But to the
:15:09. > :15:14.people of Deraa comedies seemed hollow promises. -- these seemed
:15:14. > :15:20.horror -- hollow promises. The result had spread to towns
:15:20. > :15:25.surrounding Deraa. Demonstrators defied army snipers on the rooftop.
:15:25. > :15:30.Every Friday, after prayers, the protests swelled. One woman living
:15:30. > :15:36.in America would be confronted by the horror of those days. She had
:15:36. > :15:41.been visiting her family in Izra, near Deraa, and had seen the
:15:41. > :15:46.crackdown. My father used to cry every day when he was watching the
:15:46. > :15:53.news. He was very scared about me, my family and stuff. He told me I
:15:53. > :16:03.should leave the country. Back in the States, on April 22nd, Hala
:16:03. > :16:08.
:16:08. > :16:11.locked on to Facebook. By chance Army snipers had killed 25
:16:11. > :16:19.protesters in Izra, one of them and eight-year-old trialled. The
:16:19. > :16:25.pictures are too graphic to show. - - child. Look at that kid. Hala
:16:25. > :16:35.realised that one of the wounded was her father. This is my father.
:16:35. > :16:43.
:16:43. > :16:47.He passed away in the video. I saw when he passed away. That video
:16:47. > :16:52.makes me very upset and angry. Because I know my father, my father
:16:52. > :17:00.is a very brave man, very honest. He was shot three times. And he
:17:00. > :17:05.doesn't know anything about politics. The soldiers enforcing
:17:05. > :17:13.President Assad's will rarely speak. But in Turkey I met an army sniper
:17:13. > :17:20.who had been sent to Deraa. Wasim defected and lives in fear of his
:17:20. > :17:26.life. We cannot show his face. But I saw his military ID. Wasim
:17:26. > :17:30.thought he was defending his country. TRANSLATION: The officers
:17:30. > :17:36.were telling us they were armed gangs, part of a foreign conspiracy.
:17:36. > :17:41.We said, we want to go to Izra, to Deraa, we want to clean it up and
:17:41. > :17:51.kill the terrorists. Syrian state television was showing pictures
:17:51. > :17:59.
:17:59. > :18:03.They said that these armed men were protesters. But when Wasim got to
:18:03. > :18:10.the city, he discovered that these gangs were de shabbiha, or the
:18:10. > :18:14.ghosts. They are thugs, recruited to do the army's dirty work and act
:18:14. > :18:19.as agents provocateurs. TRANSLATION: The officers are said
:18:19. > :18:22.to us, there are armed groups. But don't shoot them. They belonged to
:18:22. > :18:30.us. There are no rebels or conspirators, only the people.
:18:30. > :18:35.Should the people. But we didn't want to. -- shoot the people.
:18:35. > :18:45.Wasim's unit was sent to tan, under orders to shoot to kill. One
:18:45. > :18:49.soldier who refused was never seen TRANSLATION: Some of us did not
:18:49. > :18:56.shoot at people. We were shooting at the walls, up in the air. There
:18:56. > :18:59.was a unit behind us, soldiers from the Fourth Division, loyal to Maher
:18:59. > :19:09.Assad. If you didn't shoot, they would shoot you from behind. They
:19:09. > :19:10.
:19:10. > :19:17.Wasim knew that he had to get out. He escaped with 20 others from his
:19:17. > :19:24.unit and fled across the border. Other soldiers were not so lucky,
:19:24. > :19:29.as Omar, the activist from Deraa, showed me. They shoot the soldiers,
:19:29. > :19:33.from behind. There are about 12. Here, we have eight. And the people
:19:33. > :19:38.of Deraa are helping? Yes, the civilians are helping. The soldiers,
:19:38. > :19:45.what happened to them? Some of them fled the country, some of them are
:19:45. > :19:51.hiding even now. I guess some of them are dead. Ultimately, it will
:19:51. > :19:55.be the army which will determine the fate of this Arab uprising.
:19:56. > :20:01.Syria is not like Egypt or Libya, where the army, or a significant
:20:01. > :20:06.part of it, sided with the people, forcing out a dictator. Syria's
:20:06. > :20:12.army has been carefully tailored over the years to make sure the
:20:12. > :20:16.Assad regime stays in power. To understand more I was off to meet
:20:16. > :20:23.one of the highest-ranking defendants -- defectors, a Sunni,
:20:23. > :20:27.like most people in Syria. Unlike him, 90% of the officers in the
:20:27. > :20:33.security forces are Alawite. They are from the same minority sect as
:20:33. > :20:41.the President's family. And they are DI and -- die hard Assad
:20:41. > :20:45.loyalists. I waited in a safe house. The colonel is a wanted man. He
:20:45. > :20:55.just announced on line that he and other Sunni officers were forming a
:20:55. > :21:03.
:21:03. > :21:07.TRANSLATION: I sympathised with the revolution from the start. I was
:21:07. > :21:14.under constant surveillance. They had spies in all of the military
:21:14. > :21:18.ballots. -- barracks. The captain and those with him confirmed that
:21:18. > :21:26.atrocities by security forces were taking place in Deraa and throw out
:21:26. > :21:30.Syria. I asked who was responsible. TRANSLATION: Bashar al-Assad is
:21:30. > :21:40.responsible. He is the head of the state and no decree can be issued
:21:40. > :21:42.
:21:42. > :21:46.without his authorisation. It is a More and more defective videos had
:21:46. > :21:52.appeared online. Thousands of soldiers are thought to have
:21:52. > :21:56.abandoned units and drying the protesters. -- joined the
:21:57. > :22:03.protesters. But with so many Assad loyalists, it will be hard to get
:22:03. > :22:08.the army to reach 80 been point. TRANSLATION: We are counting on
:22:08. > :22:11.defections. There are larger numbers occurring every day. But we
:22:11. > :22:16.know that the regime cannot be taken out without using force. We
:22:16. > :22:21.are now preparing for this stage. Do you understand? If they don't
:22:21. > :22:27.agree to give up power peacefully, we will take them out by force.
:22:27. > :22:36.until that happens, the army will continue to be Assad's instrument
:22:36. > :22:46.of repression. On April 25th, the security forces were ordered to
:22:46. > :22:56.
:22:56. > :23:04.begin the siege of Deraa. Tanks Homes were blasted with artillery
:23:04. > :23:07.as the whole city was punished for its defiance. Water, food and
:23:07. > :23:17.electricity were cut off. Bodies were stored in refrigerated trucks.
:23:17. > :23:22.
:23:22. > :23:26.It was too dangerous to go out and Four days after the siege began,
:23:26. > :23:36.villages around Deraa tried to break the blockade and bring food
:23:36. > :23:37.
:23:37. > :23:47.Again, the security forces opened fire, even though there were many
:23:47. > :23:47.
:23:47. > :23:53.children in the crowd. Nawal al Shari begged her son not to join
:23:53. > :24:00.the march that day. 15-year-old Thamer, like many of Deraa's
:24:00. > :24:04.children, had been inspired to join the revolution. TRANSLATION: His
:24:04. > :24:14.conscience would not let him accept the bloodshed. He kept going out,
:24:14. > :24:21.
:24:21. > :24:29.protesting with the people. Every Dozens of people were killed that
:24:29. > :24:32.day. Scores were arrested. Nawal's son was one of them. Thamer was
:24:32. > :24:36.taken to the intelligence headquarters in Damascus.
:24:36. > :24:40.TRANSLATION: There was a witness inside the prison who saw and heard
:24:40. > :24:48.him while he was being tortured. He was calling out for help, calling
:24:48. > :24:52.out, God, freedom, Syria! That is all he said. When Thamer's family
:24:52. > :25:02.was returned to the family, five weeks later, he had been beaten.
:25:02. > :25:09.
:25:09. > :25:13.His neck was broken, he had bullet TRANSLATION: Wall of my son's
:25:13. > :25:19.features were gone. He was not my son, who used to be a handsome
:25:19. > :25:29.prince in my eyes. How can I describe how he looked? I mean,
:25:29. > :25:33.
:25:33. > :25:36.don't they have children? Are they The torture and killing of Thamer
:25:36. > :25:41.and one of his school friends brought new impetus to the
:25:41. > :25:51.revolution. Across Syria, 100 children have been killed by the
:25:51. > :25:52.
:25:52. > :25:58.A defiant regime brought supporters onto the streets of Damascus in
:25:58. > :26:01.June. The President offered a national dialogue, but the killing
:26:01. > :26:10.went on. We asked the Syrian government for an interview about
:26:10. > :26:15.the human rights abuses in the country. They did not respond. The
:26:15. > :26:19.pictures taken in Tareq Abu Rajab, however, take -- tell their own
:26:19. > :26:22.story. A UN investigation has found there had been widespread and
:26:22. > :26:28.systematic attacks against civilians by Syria's security
:26:28. > :26:38.forces. Many people now believe that President Assad and his
:26:38. > :26:42.
:26:42. > :26:46.henchmen should be in the dock at Nawal, his father was killed by an
:26:47. > :26:51.army sniper, is the first Syrian to try to take a case against the
:26:51. > :26:55.regime to The Hague. We have to stop the killing. We need to remove
:26:55. > :27:01.that President. I will keep fighting to the end, until I see
:27:01. > :27:08.him in the International Criminal Court, to justice. When Colonel
:27:08. > :27:13.Gaddafi was ousted in August, Deraa took part. But Syria's Arab Spring
:27:13. > :27:19.is now approaching winter. It will last much longer than Libya's or
:27:19. > :27:22.Egypt's. The international community has condemned the Assad
:27:22. > :27:28.regime and impose sanctions. But there is no appetite for military
:27:28. > :27:31.intervention, and it is not what the people of Deraa want. We need
:27:31. > :27:35.the international community to surround the regime from outside.
:27:35. > :27:44.If you cut the financial sources, they don't have money to pay for
:27:44. > :27:51.their thugs and their criminals. After five months, the army still
:27:51. > :27:57.occupies Deraa. Local activists say at least 600 people have died. 3000
:27:57. > :28:00.are missing in the area. The latest pictures smuggled out show the
:28:00. > :28:08.activists are still gathering evidence. They are still writing
:28:08. > :28:12.graffiti, demanding an end to the regime. TRANSLATION: Deraa's people
:28:12. > :28:22.have suffered, but they are resistant. God will grant them
:28:22. > :28:25.
:28:26. > :28:29.victory. It started in Deraa and The people of Deraa say that they
:28:29. > :28:38.will not stay silent. They won't give up. Whatever the price they