http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/world/europe/Mary-Atwan-Maisa-Saleh-Syria.html 2014-10-03 17:46:14 A Chronicler of Syria’s Conflict Returns to the Spotlight, Minus a Disguise Maisa Saleh, who hosted a weekly talk show in Damascus wearing a wig and using an alias to conceal her identity, goes public with her story. === GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Mary Atwan, a trained nurse, has been a working journalist in Syria since 2012, but only when she traveled to Ferrara, Italy, this week to receive a prestigious award did the world learn her real name: Maisa Saleh. It was also a first chance for the world outside a narrow circle in Syria to see a sample of her work, which in addition to meriting this year’s Her home now is here in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, 30 miles from the border with Syria. There is no thought of her returning to Syria anytime soon. “I know they will arrest me,” she said. Although she got her start as a reporter for the Syrian opposition channel Orient TV, it was her work as the host of a weekly talk show beginning in January of last year that vaulted her into prominence. A natural brunette, Ms. Saleh wore a short blond wig with bangs, sunglasses with large round frames and a scarf that covered her mouth and nose. Her voice was altered. Even her family was unaware that the woman they watched on television every week was their beloved Maisa. “I absolutely couldn’t show my face because they would kill me,” said Ms. Saleh, who was arrested in April of last year by the Syrian government on suspicion of being Ms. Atwan. She was released months later when the authorities were unable to prove their case. “They know I am a reporter, but they don’t know I am the same one who makes this show,” Ms. Saleh said. “Still, many, many friends and activists don’t know.” The relative anonymity has been a comfort to Ms. Saleh, who has feared — with good reason — that her political affiliations could compromise her family’s safety. When Ms. Saleh was released from prison in October of last year, she learned that her youngest sister, a student whose fiancé is a journalist, had been taken by militants with the Islamic State in August. “They arrested my sister,” Ms. Saleh said. “There is nothing, no information. Is she alive? Has she died? We don’t know.” But now, with most of her family out of danger, she has decided to go public with her story, though she asked that none of her family members be identified by name. Born in Aleppo, Syria, into a family of freethinkers, Ms. Saleh has long lived in fear of the government, first Hafez al-Assad’s and then that of his son, the current president, Bashar al-Assad. Her father, an elementary school teacher, was a Marxist who liked to read philosophy in his spare time. “My family was very open-minded,” said Ms. Saleh, who was taught at an early age about human rights and social freedoms — far from a normal upbringing in a police state. “We knew something needed to change.” A trained intensive care unit nurse, she was first arrested in 2004, long before the events that led to the current conflict, after meeting covertly with a politically minded group of friends. Such gatherings, where they watched movies and plotted small protests in Aleppo, were illegal. “We were looking to do something different,” Ms. Saleh said. “The regime had control of all things in Syria. We were looking for freedom.” Ms. Saleh was released after a day of questioning, but the arrest flagged her as a conspirator. When the unrest erupted, “The police came to the hospital and warned me,” she said, when pro-democracy demonstrations began that month. “I could not speak that I was supporting the revolution in the hospital because it was so dangerous.” Ms. Saleh defied those warnings, and she soon left her job as the head nurse in a Damascus hospital and went into hiding. She began to set up field hospitals in Damascus, the capital, to treat wounded demonstrators, who could not receive medical care at government hospitals. “If you were shot while protesting, you could not seek treatment,” she said. “They would arrest you.” With the uprising in full swing, Ms. Saleh described rushing to devastating scenes of destruction, dodging snipers along the way and narrowly escaping bombs that killed many of her colleagues. “I was going without cover, but the Free Army helped me to get to these areas,” she said, referring to the Free Syrian Army, the moderate, pro-Western rebel faction. Her life in perpetual danger during rescue missions, she became frustrated by the portrayal of revolutionaries in the Syrian state-run news media as sectarian terrorists. “All TV channels, they were talking about the war in Syria between armies,” Ms. Saleh said. “We are not all of us Free Army.” Her transition from medical work to journalism was done for practical and ideological reasons. She needed the money. So she took a job with Orient TV, a Syrian satellite channel that had been based in Damascus but relocated to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, after the conflict began, and started reporting from the field via Skype. In January 2013, in a breathtakingly audacious move, Ms. Saleh began producing her own program, “From the Capital,” right under the noses of the secret police in Damascus, as the program’s title suggested. The show brought together civilian activists for discussions on issues such as sectarian violence and the role of the arts in the uprising. She shot segments from secret locations in Damascus, brazenly going through checkpoints and hiding her wig, scarf and other incriminating items in her handbag, which the police at that time were too polite to search. Needless to say, the 45-minute news talk show was the only one of its kind, before or since. In one episode, four activists can be seen sitting on a sofa in a nondescript apartment. While it was taped during the day, the lighting was kept low and the participants’ faces were covered or blurred. “It was very high risk to get on this program,” Ms. Saleh said of her interview subjects. “They knew I cannot help them if anything happens. They knew we did it because we believed that it was good for our country.” Eventually, a friend cracked under torture and told the police where they could find her. She was captured in April at a local cafe in cinematic fashion. “When we went out of the cafe there were many policemen with guns, with Kalashnikovs,” she said. Smiling proudly, one of the officers grabbed her arm and told her, “Welcome, Miss Mary. I haven’t slept in 40 days while I am looking for you.” Ms. Saleh was defiant. “I told him I am not Mary,” she said. “I am Maisa.” The real Ms. Saleh has long, thick brown hair and dark brown eyes. Salma Hayek might play her in a movie version of her story, if the actress could balance the elation of surviving months in prison and years of war with the terrible worry she feels over the kidnapping of her sister and the continued government persecution of several of her family members, cousins who are also activists. Prison being almost a rite of passage among many in Ms. Saleh’s circle, she plays down her own time in custody. She was beaten, but not badly, she said, probably because of her newfound celebrity. For many others, prison has meant severe torture, even death. “I am not a story,” she said. The local news media do not agree, and she has been pressed for interviews since her release in October 2013 in a prisoner exchange involving Lebanon, Turkey, Qatar and the Palestinian Authority. Saleh has repeatedly denied the news media requests. Things, however, are changing, as both she and her father, whom she worries about the most, are now out of Syria. She is about to re-enter the spotlight, this time as herself, on a television show on Orient TV about Syrian female activists. “There are many stories I want people to know,” she said.