Lovesick soldier ‘beaten’ over social media posts to Assad daughter
A SYRIAN soldier who posted videos on social media declaring his love for Bashar al-Assad’s teenage daughter has allegedly been arrested and beaten.
Yazan Soltani began posting videos last week addressed to Zein Assad (16), proposing marriage, despite warnings that he could be arrested.
“I love you, I really love you,” Mr Soltani says in a clip. “You are mine and I am yours.”
On Saturday, a post appeared on his Facebook page, apparently written by his brother, claiming that he had been “arrested and beaten” over the videos.
A further update posted yesterday reads: “For more than eight years he has served in the army, away from his family, his home and friends, but because he expressed his feelings and said ‘I love you’. . . he is now in the hands of the army he serves in and has lost his future. Everyone makes mistakes [but they] will kill him and torture him.”
During Syria’s nine-year civil war, an estimated 400,000 people have been killed, while tens of thousands of opponents to Assad’s regime have been jailed or met an unknown fate.
Mr Soltani’s videos previously received a mixed reaction in Syria, with some users celebrating him as a “romantic hero” while others warned him his posts could be dangerous.
“There were others before who appeared on social media and made tiny requests, and we don’t see them any more,” warned one Syrian blogger. “You are very close to the red line.”
The soldier’s arrest came as thousands of people rallied in Deraa province, southern Syria, on Saturday to demand the release of political prisoners and an end to Iranian interference.
The US last week targeted Assad and his family with a raft of new sanctions under the so-called “Caesar Act”, named after the codename of a Syrian military police photographer who testified to the US Congress in 2014.
His evidence included 55,000 images of torture victims from early years of the war that he helped smuggle out of Syria.
With pressure growing to indict the perpetrators, in Germany, prosecutors yesterday announced the arrest of an alleged Syrian intelligence agent on suspicion of crimes against humanity. Two former Syrian officials are already on trial in Germany.
Syria has condemned the US sanctions as “criminal”.