Reports | 10 11 2016
Many people of Qaboun neighborhood in Damascus, think many times before coming out of the neighborhood, because of the laws imposed on them by the regime’s checkpoints!
The suffering of the people there is not limited at the difficult conditions they face as a result of the partial siege imposed on them by the Syrian regime forces for more than three years but even goes beyond bearing harassment against them by the soldiers on the checkpoints while trying to move out of the neighborhood.
"Abu Hamam" used to run an arduous daily journey whenever he wanted to go and return from work in "Tal", which is under the control of the Syrian regime, where he is often forced to bribe the soldiers of the regime checkpoints in the neighborhood, in order to be able to return to his home accompanied by some food.
He says: "Every morning, I go to my work riding a bus through "Barza" neighborhood, and I always come across the checkpoint of "Political Security Branch" and expose to accurate vetting. About the checkpoint located at the entrance of Qaboun, it always prevents us from entering any kind of food and in case you insist on entering things may keep you alive; you have to pay a bribe. "
Necessity has no laws
Many residents of the neighborhood Qaboun have to leave it and come back daily in order to get their livelihood or to get anything to avoid hunger, even if they were forced to bribe the checkpoint, particularly with the rise in food prices in the besieged neighborhood, as Abu Humam explains.
Abu Ammar also complains about the bad treatment he faces by the soldiers on the checkpoints on his way to work out of the neighborhood, he explains: "I work with my father in a metal workshop in the city of "Tal", and I subject to the same harassments by the same soldiers every day, and I especially that I will be taken to the mandatory service after one year. I always see many cases of arrests on those checkpoints, with and without a reason. "
No Difference between men and women?
Even women, have not been spared from humiliation at the hands of regime’s soldiers on the checkpoints, during trying to get out of the neighborhood.
Thirty-year-old-girl "Samah" also is met with abuse every time she wants to visit her brothers in Barza, or even to buy a few things for her home.
she says to Rozana: "The checkpoint of the Gas Station in the neighborhood is one of the most terrifying checkpoints, due to the presence of Russian officers there. And we always beg the soldiers on the checkpoint in order to deal with us in a proper way saying to them: "Please, may Allah protect you", but in vain.
More than a hundred thousand people in the Qaboun neighborhood are straining to provide minimum conditions of life, and facing difficulties similar to what is happening in most of the besieged towns, despite the truce signed between the opposition groups and the Syrian regime forces since February 2014.