Omar Alshogre is a Syrian public speaker, human rights advocate, and Georgetown University student who is currently based in Washington D.C.  Alshogre fled Syria at the age of 20 after being arrested and imprisoned for participating in rallies and demonstrations against the Syrian regime. 

The Syrian government first arrested Alshogre for participating in an anti-government protest when he was 15-years old. The  Assad regime imprisoned him for two days and subsequently released him. While the regime had arrested him around six other times for short periods of time, on November 16, 2022 he was arrested for a final period of three years. 

That day, armed militiamen entered his cousin’s house and arrested Omar alongside his cousins, Bashir, Nour, and Rashad. The militiamen sent them to the Military Intelligence in central Tartus for investigation.  Alshogre spent a year and nine months in Branch 215, a military intelligence detention center in central Damascus. Alongside other detainees, he experienced daily torture, including by electrical shock, beatings with cable and metal, and the removal of his finger nails. While in Branch 215, the detention center administration tasked him with removing the bodies of prisoners who had died and numbering their foreheads. On March 15, 2013, Alshogre’s older cousin Rashad died after enduring extreme torture. In early 2014, his closest cousin, Bashir, died as a result of torture and tuberculosis. Alshogre had been carrying him to enable him to go to the restroom, as he had become too weak to walk by himself. Alshogre carried Bashir’s body to the mortuary and numbered his forehead.

The regime transferred Alshogre to Sednaya Prison on August 15, 2014, where psychological and physical torture were much more intense. He attests that prisoners faced arbitrary executions for offenses like talking without authorization.  With the help of his mother, Omar was finally smuggled from prison at the age of 20. From his new home, Omar currently engages in raising awareness of the situation in Syria and advocates for the liberation of detainees.