How he made it_ Syrian torture survivor becomes DePaul Law grad
Reporter
Chicago Tribune
PHOTO: Chicago Tribune website
Zareen Syed writes in the Chicago Tribune:
He says he can’t really describe torture or the night terrors that still creep up on him years later, but he’ll try. He starts out with a picture: a prison cell the size of a rug and a creaky door that he couldn’t help but stare at. Every time it opened, he knew he’d either be released or tortured once again.
When Emad Mahou tells the story of being imprisoned in Syria during the 2011 revolution, his voice has a heaviness, unlike the joy he exhibits when talking about not knowing how to order a Subway sandwich when he arrived in Chicago as a refugee.
PHOTO: DePaul Law
With his hands he demonstrates the ups and downs of the last 12 years — from being released and offered refuge in America to graduating from the DePaul University School of Law. As his wife, 8-year-old daughter and his father stood in the stands, he walked across the stage with hopes of practicing human rights law to help other refugees coming into the country.
Mahou’s father, Shirkou Mahou, flew in from Lebanon to attend the May 20 ceremony on a visit visa.
“I’m seeing a part of my dad I didn’t see before,” Mahou said. “He’s an old man. When I left he was much stronger, much younger.”
On a May afternoon, days before the graduation ceremony, Mahou’s dad was sitting next to him on a couch in one of DePaul’s Loop campus law buildings, wearing a brown suit, white shirt and a prayer hat on his head.
It’s his first time in America. His first time seeing his son’s new life up close — so different from the life he left at age 21.
He cried audibly every now and then, especially when Mahou would translate for him into Arabic parts of what he was sharing about the Syria of his childhood versus the Syria he left behind.
. . . .
Mahou’s memories of some of his arrests are blurry, except for one in which he was detained and tortured for three months. In June 2011, he said he spent 100 days in an underground cell the size of a rug. He didn’t know it when he was thrown in, but this would also be the last time he’d be imprisoned.
“The torture was really over the limit at that point. I was really struggling with the pain,” Mahou said. “It was daily, continuous, degrading. One day in particular, they took turns urinating on me. It got to a point where mentally I was broken. You smell yourself and I felt really, really bad. I am used to a nice life. I showered daily. I was in college to be an architect.”
Mahou stops and reminds himself that he had a full life in Zabadani, Syria, before the revolution. They all did.
“At that point, I was almost done with college and I had a whole future ahead of me. And I just looked at where I am now. That day was my weakest day mentally. I was shattered. The humiliation went too far — like they’re using you as a toilet … so I banged my head on the wall.”
. . . .
He started attending community college at Harry Truman toward a degree in computer science in the fall of 2013, before transferring to DeVry. In 2017, he got a job as a web developer for the board of trustees at DePaul University. There he met law professor Craig Mousin, who sat in an office across from Mahou.
Ombudsperson
Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Grace School of Applied Diplomacy
DePaul University
PHOTO: DePaul Website
Mousin said when Mahou realized that he taught at the law school and that his specific area of teaching was asylum and refugee law, it piqued his interest.
“Emad has intimate knowledge of how governments can use all the power and authority they have to stifle dissent,” Mousin said. “And sometimes in doing asylum and human rights cases, there’s this built-in assumption that governments would not hurt their own citizens. And sometimes it’s very difficult for people in the United States who live with relative freedom to understand that. Emad’s felt the brunt of that failure.”
With Mousin’s guidance, Mahou tapped into his experience of standing up for freedom in Syria and what he calls “a rebel mentality” to figure out that what he actually wants to do isn’t web development, but rather become a lawyer. On May 20, he earned his juris doctorate.
“I really want to learn about other people’s experiences in the system,” said Mahou, who now lives in Oak Park. “People who are fleeing persecution, traveling through dangerous paths to seek refuge, those are the people I want to help.”
Mahou said he’s now studying for the bar exam but was fortunate to get a taste of the kind of cases he would like to work on when he enrolled in DePaul’s Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic, where he helped put together an asylum petition for a family.
As Mahou recounts his tale, he shares that he’s seen his parents for a total of 20 days since 2011, during short visits to Lebanon. And now he was making up for lost time.
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Refugees have been making America great since before there was an America!
Thanks to my friend Processor Craig Mousin at DePaul Law for passing this along.
🇺🇸🗽⚖️ Due Process Forever!
PWS
6-12-23
