Dorothy Parvaz in Syria: Happy Ending to a Terrifying Story

When the news broke Tuesday night that Dorothy Parvaz, a former PI/Times reporter who currently works for Al Jazeera, was on her way home, there was a collective sigh of relief. It's so rare to hear a happy ending to this kind of story, and Parvaz, who had been missing for nearly three weeks, had the world worried. After she got home safely, she did what any journalist would do--she wrote up her story for Al Jazeera. It is a compelling, yet terrifying, read, right from the beginning.

I was standing in two fist-sized pools of smeared, sticky blood, trying to sort out why there were seven angry Syrians yelling at me. Only one of them - who I came to know as Mr Shut Up during my three days in a detention center, where so many Syrians 'disappeared' are being kept - spoke English.

She reports that eventually, she learned the reason for her detainment--the Syrian government does not like the light that Al Jazeera puts them in.

He even took me to his boss's office - again, remember, no one has any names here - where I was given a lecture on Al Jazeera’s coverage of the troubles in Syria, mostly focusing on how a tiny, tiny minority was causing a problem for an essentially happy majority.

She was then deported to Iran, where the Syrian authorities told the Iranians she was a spy. Apparently she was treated with utmost respect there, and when the investigator on her case determined that she was a journalist, not a spy, she was sent home.

Parvaz doesn't just tell her story, though--she tells others', too. Like the woman who she shared a cell with initially, a 25-year-old woman from Damascus, who had been there for four days with no idea where she was or why she was there, and her second roommate, an even more confused, extremely teenage girl who, understandably, was terrified to see the on-site doctor. Or the incessant beatings she heard all day, every day, accompanied with cries that often sounded like they were coming from teenage boys.

Most of the our days were spent listening to the sounds of young men being brutally interrogated - sometimes tied up in stress positions until it sounded like their bones were cracking, as we saw from our bathroom window (a bathroom with no running water, except for one tap in a sink filled with roughly 10 cm of sewage).

One afternoon, the beating we heard was so severe that we could clearly hear the interrogator pummelling his boots and fists into his subject, almost in a trance, yelling questions or accusations rhythmically as the blows landed in what sounded like the prisoner's midriff.

My roommate shook and wept, reminding me (or perhaps herself) that they didn't beat women here.

Good on Parvaz, continuing to do her work even while wrapped in the very process that threatens it. The whole story is more than worth a read; her ability to recount her experiences so strongly so soon after returning home is a testament to her ability as a journalist.

It's important to remember that Parvaz's story is not unique. Reporters Without Borders reports that Libya, for example, just released six journalists from custody (including an Al-Jazeera reporter), but is still holding at least nine more.