Strapped upside-down to a steel chair, his legs thrashing in the air, Abu Youssef heard the steady hum of the electricity generator and felt its first searing jolt. With apparent glee, his tormentors attached the electrodes to his little fingers then the soles of his feet. 

"They told me 'Assad is your God - worship your president'," the 43-year old Syrian recounted. "I'm a Muslim, I couldn't do that."

As the father of four gasped for mercy, Syrian security officers applied over a hundred volts to his private parts. Time and again they barked their demands: the names of activists, their addresses and his contacts in the Muslim Brotherhood.

"If I'd known something I'd surely have talked. But I had nothing to confess," Abu Youssef says, pausing to compose himself. Wearing a navy anorak, he sports a thin beard, his glance darting across the terrace of the chic, glass-fronted cafe in Antakya, southern Turkey. It's a far cry from the tiny cell in Idlib province, northwest Syria in which he was held with five others last autumn.

Released after six days, his feet were swollen "like footballs." The shoes he had been wearing when seized from outside his local mosque no longer fit. 

Far from cowing him, the Assad regime had created another enemy. Within a week this soft-spoken, formerly apolitical construction foreman was organising Friday protests in his hometown of Darkush, just a few miles from the Turkish border.

Abu Youssef's activism continues to this day, even as the settlement of 17,000 people is encircled by Syrian tanks, the country's death toll rockets, and peaceful protests seem a relic of more innocent times.

The Darkush native was just one of hundreds who passed through the torture chambers of Idlib - the capital of the northwest province whose rugged terrain has made it the hotbed of the armed uprising against Syria's president.

As rebel fighters retreat from Homs in central Syria, Assad's troops are turning their attention to the forests and farmhouses that flank the Turkish border. It's here that the defected soldiers and armed volunteers who make up the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and loosely affiliated militias control small patches of ground. The rebels appear to have substantial local support, even as their guerrilla tactics risk bringing retribution on the villagers who house them. 

Over the last week, a steady stream of civilians have braved Syrian checkpoints, minefields and snipers to cross into Turkey on the few smugglers' routes still believed to be safe. The window of opportunity is shrinking by the day.

"The situation in Idlib province is critical," admits Abu Mohamed, the main organiser for medical evacuations from Idlib, Aleppo and Homs – a substantial chunk of north-central Syria. Slight, bespectacled and shy, he's a difficult man to get hold of, flitting between Turkey and Syria on a few hours' notice. 

"There are daily skirmishes between the army and rebels: Assad's forces are going for the activists. Their goal is to put pressure on civilian population to give the FSA up," he says. "There are informers, too; which is a real problem. I might be in a safe house in Syria speaking about transport, but the man next to me could be reporting everything we say." 

New arrivals at refugee camps run by the Turkish Red Crescent in the town of Yayladagi talk of repeated shelling and dawn attacks on Syria's border villages, with long-distance barrages by shells and gunfire followed by raids in which scores of young men are arrested and others flee.

Over the last week, some refugees have described attacks by helicopter gunships on mountain settlements like Kabeni, to the south of Idlib province, near Jisr Al-Shaghour. Such accounts are near-impossible to verify but disparate eyewitnesses mention vivid details that broadly tally with each other.

Many who crossed in the last few weeks said they had escaped with the escort of armed rebels. Just yesterday, four extended families – including 40 pre-teen children – crossed the Orontes River, taking shelter in a home in the Antakya suburbs provided by an elderly Turkish businessman.

Despite the great risks involved in taking to the Syrian streets, peaceful protests are – almost unbelievably – still going ahead. In Darkush, a town arranged around a single, long street, residents gather for small, almost daily demonstrations.

The response by government-loyal forces has been predictable: sniper-fire, a quick incursion to clear the streets then a hasty retreat to the outskirts. "We didn't even lift a stick and the security forces opened fire," says Samer, a 40 year-old civil servant from the agricultural town, describing the most recent crackdown.

In a spartan apartment in Antakya, surrounded by refugees he'd helped shepherd to safety just hours before, Samer shows blurry footage on his mobile phone of several hundred men and children marching in the town's small souq (market). Another clip shows army jeeps speeding through the streets to the crackle of automatic weapons.

Openly filming is too conspicuous now, he says. Instead, activists have imported a range of tiny, everyday objects fitted with cameras. Costing just $10 apiece from Chinese suppliers, they are a vital conduit for getting reports out of Darkush.

Cradling his 3-year old son, Samer is preparing himself for another nightime crossing to take in much-needed money and medical supplies. He shrugs off the risk. "If I die for this then at least my children might become free," he asks. "Haven't you tasted freedom? Isn't it worth dying for?"

Abu Youssef's life has become similarly nomadic; he crosses the border several times a week. A wanted man, he never spends more than a night in the same home in the villages near Darkush. Others have brought their families to Turkey but Abu Youssef says his four teenaged children have refused to make the trip. "I told them they had to leave. The eldest told me no: they will bring down the regime or they will die trying," he says with evident pride.

"My son is called Bashar. You know, tomorrow he's going to stand in front of everyone with a microphone and change his name to Abdel-Rahmin. He doesn't want to be named after a tyrant anymore."

For the first time, the reluctant revolutionary cracks a grin. 

"It's going to be quite a demonstration. You can come along if you want."

(Names have been changed)