Mirrors of the Unseen - Faraj Bayraktar

Section: Poetry

Pages: 72 pages

Publisher: Sameh Publishing House

In November 2000, the Syrian authorities released the poet Faraj Bayraktar, or “Prisoner No. 13,” after he spent fourteen years in his second and last arrest, during which he moved between the intelligence cells, the Palmyra prison, and the terrifying Saydnaya prison.

The poet went out to freedom and light, but his poems, which were included in the “Mirrors of Absence” collection, remained imprisoned in the dark in the drawers of the Ministry of Culture, which had agreed, after refusal, procrastination and procrastination, to issue the collection in 2005, but the intelligence services decided “not to be distributed, sold, or released.” From warehouses,” says Faraj in his introduction to this edition.

Thus, the poems of this collection remained a prisoner of oppression and arbitrariness, despite the freedom that the poet gained after a wide international campaign calling for his release, in which writers, artists, human rights and political figures, and many international organizations concerned with freedom of expression, opposition to repression, and defense of human rights participated.

With the issuance of “Mirrors of Absence” in this second edition, now and fifteen years after its first edition was held, “freedom triumphs and prisons are defeated,” as stated at the end of the plea submitted by Faraj Bayraktar before the Supreme State Security Court in Damascus in 1993.