Massoud Hamid is a

Syrian Kurdish The Kurdish population of Syria is the country's largest ethnic minority, usually estimated at around 10% of the Syrian population Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria, constituting around 10 per cent of the population – around 2 m ...

journalism student. He took photographs of a pro-Kurdish event.

Biography

Hamid received a three-year prison sentence. Hamid was held in

solitary confinement Solitary confinement (also shortened to solitary) is a form of imprisonment in which an incarcerated person lives in a single Prison cell, cell with little or no contact with other people. It is a punitive tool used within the prison system to ...

Adra Prison Adra Prison () was a prison in Syria, on the northeast outskirts of Damascus. Political prisoners are held in the prison, along with a mixture of civil prisoners such as traffic offenders, murderers, and drug dealers. In 2014, the prison held more ...

for one year from 2003–04 before he was allowed monthly visits, and

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

said that interrogators reportedly tortured him and beat him with a studded whip on the bottom of his feet. His room was , largely filled by a toilet. He received the 2005 cyberfreedom prize from

Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; ; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organisation, non-governmental organization headquartered in Paris, which focuses on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its a ...

References

Living people Syrian journalists Syrian prisoners and detainees Journalists imprisoned in Syria Syrian torture victims Syrian Kurdish people Year of birth missing (living people) {{Syria-journalist-stub