Ahmed Ragheed Al-Tatari spent 43 years in prison for defying orders to bomb Hama [Social Media]
A Syrian pilot who spent 43 years in prison after refusing orders to bomb the city of Hama has been awarded the International Benevolence Award by the Turkish Religious Authority (Diyanet).
Ahmed Ragheed Al-Tatari rejected orders to drop bombs on Hama in 1982, during an Assad regime massacre in the city which lasted several weeks and killed up to 30,000 people.
He was imprisoned at the notorious Sednaya Prison for this and only freed in December 2024, when longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez in 2000, was overthrown following a rebel offensive led by the Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
The award was presented to Al-Tatari by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a ceremony hosted by Diyanet.
At the moment of this massacre, Syrian pilot Ragheed Ahmad Al Tatari listened to his conscience and refused to obey the order to bomb innocent people.
“Ragheed Al-Tatari reminds us of the highest meaning of conscience, courage, and benevolence by dedicating his life to prison to avoid massacring his people,” a post on Diyanet’s website said.
“Airstrikes ordered by a dictator claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people, and Hama was reduced to devastation. At the moment of this massacre, Syrian pilot Ragheed Ahmad Al Tatari listened to his conscience and refused to obey the order to bomb innocent people,” the post added
Al-Tatari was 27 at the time he was arrested and was 70 at the time of his release.
During his time in prison he became an icon for detainees in Sednaya, thousands of whom were tortured and executed during the Assad regime’s time in power
“There are no words sufficient to describe Ragheed. Everyone who knows him is impressed by his bold and strong-willed nature. Despite enduring decades of systematic oppression and torture, they could not break his spirit or rid him of his smile,” Diab Serrih from the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP), who spent five years imprisoned with Al-Tatari said in 2021.
Thousands of prisoners were freed from the Assad regime’s jails during and after the rebel offensive but hundreds of thousands who had been forcibly disappeared were not found and are presumed dead.
