Throughout a lightning offensive to seize Syria, opposition fighters have freed hundreds of individuals from a community of terrifying prisons that characterised the repressive al-Assad regime that they finally ousted.
Coming from the north, they took Aleppo first, then Hama, Homs and Damascus.
Alongside the best way, they busted open central prisons and reassured these stumbling out – frail and confused – that they had been protected.
They informed them the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was on the verge of – or had already – fallen, and confirmed the world the circumstances that untold hundreds of individuals had been held in for ages.
The work has continued, as fighters and aid staff scramble to search out prisoners left behind, open secret cells, and even discover the areas of secret services.
Their efforts supply faint hope to numerous Syrian households whose family members “disappeared” into a jail system many describe as dungeons or dying camps.
Right here’s all you’ll want to find out about Syria’s prisons below al-Assad’s rule:
What number of prisons had been there in Syria?
Greater than 100 detention services – in keeping with a United Nations report – and an unknown variety of secret services.
Two of essentially the most infamous prisons had been Tadmor and Sednaya.
They had been within the desert of the traditional metropolis of Palmyra and simply outdoors Damascus, respectively.
What had been circumstances like in Syria’s prisons?
Horrific.
In 2014, a regime defector, who glided by the title “Caesar”, fled Syria with tens of hundreds of photographs displaying the mutilated our bodies of detainees who had been killed or tortured in Syrian prisons.
He handed on about 53,276 information to Syrian and worldwide rights teams and activists.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) extrapolated that the images proved at the very least 6,786 folks had died within the authorities’s custody.
Amnesty Worldwide additional referred to Sadnaya Jail as a “slaughterhouse” in 2017 after discovering that hundreds of individuals had been executed there.
They had been killed in mass hangings or tortured to dying, together with by being disadvantaged of meals, water and drugs.
Syrian authorities would then dump them in mass graves.
Amnesty stated the killings quantity to crimes in opposition to humanity.
How many individuals languished in jail?
About 157,634 Syrians had been arrested between March 2011 and August 2024.
Of this quantity, 5,274 had been youngsters and 10,221 ladies.
1000’s extra had been kidnapped by Syria’s feared safety companies through the reign of Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, who got here to energy in 1971.
His youngest son assumed management of the nation after Hafez died in 2000.
Are there nonetheless Syrians in jail?
There are numerous folks nonetheless trapped in underground dungeons, in keeping with aid teams.
Authorities have known as on former troopers and jail guards to offer opposition forces with the passwords to unlock underground digital doorways, claiming that hundreds of detainees had been nonetheless trapped in these dungeons, in keeping with CCTV photographs.
Syria’s White Helmets have additionally provided a financial reward to anybody coming ahead with info that helps uncover a secret facility.
مكافأة مالية لمن يقدم معلومات تساعد في العثور على أماكن السجون ومراكز الاعتقال السرية التي يوجد فيها معتقلون.
يعلن الدفاع المدني السوري (الخوذ البيضاء) عن تخصيص مكافأة مالية بمبلغ 3 آلاف دولار أمريكي لكل من يدلي بمعلومات مباشرة تؤدي إلى تحديد أماكن سجون سرية في سوريا يوجد فيها… pic.twitter.com/CIfxxSNisP— الدفاع المدني السوري (@SyriaCivilDefe) December 9, 2024
Translation: A monetary reward for anybody who offers info that helps discover the areas of secret prisons and detention centres the place detainees are being held. The Syria Civil Defence (White Helmets) broadcasts a monetary reward of $3,000 to anybody who offers direct info resulting in the identification of secret prisons in Syria the place detainees are being held.
It’s unclear who precisely continues to be behind bars, but rebels have to date launched hundreds of girls, in addition to aged and middle-aged males – a few of whom spent the vast majority of their lives in jail.
Rebels additionally found babies within the regime’s custody.
How had been folks tortured?
In unimaginable methods.
The Syrian regime used a number of strategies to punish actual and perceived opponents. They might whip detainees, deprive them of sleep and electrocute them.
Men and women had been routinely stripped bare, blindfolded and even raped.
On prime of that, three explicit torture strategies turned infamous in Syria for actually snapping a detainee’s again.
The primary was often known as the “German chair” and noticed jail guards sit detainees on a chair and bend them backwards till their spines snapped.
A second was known as the “flying carpet,” whereby victims had been positioned on a foldable picket board.
Guards would then elevate the 2 sides of the board, bringing the sufferer’s knees and chest collectively, till the place brought about immense again ache.
Lastly, jail guards typically tied detainees to a ladder after which would push the ladder over and watch the sufferer fall on their again – repeatedly.
Why did the regime arrest and torture so many Syrians?
Brief reply: To terrorise and scare them into submission.
Previous to the 2011 Syrian rebellion, folks within the nation used to say “the partitions have ears” to discuss with the regime’s sprawling intelligence surveillance system and community of spies, the dreaded Mukhabarat.
Anybody who made a important remark concerning the regime risked disappearing into one among its dungeons.
