The bodies of 15 civilians were the last to be rescued from Sednaya prison in Syria, according to figures from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Over there They had been tortured and murdered. As were thousands of people during the regime of the fallen Bashar al Assad.
Also from this prison, hundreds of prisoners were released with the arrival of the rebels this weekend. Furthermore, this Monday a group of rescuers went to the center in search of hidden cells. The work has ended without finding new areas in the facilities.
Located 30 kilometers north of Damascus and classified as ‘human slaughterhouse’ According to the aforementioned Syrian Observatory, this prison has become famous for the use of torture during the Assad regime. People used to arrive there from other penitentiary centers where they had spent months or years, in most cases, after an unfair trial or even without a trial and without knowing exactly what they are accused of or how long their sentence will be.
According to figures from Amnesty International, between 2011 and 2015, on a regular basis, twice a week he was taken out of his cells to groups of about 50 people to hang them. It was done during the early morning. In that period of time Up to 13,000 people were secretly executed. “They have them hanging for 10 or 15 minutes,” explained a judge quoted by Amnesty International. The man added that because they weighed little, some of them did not die. “The officials’ assistants took them down and broke their necks,” he said. Once dead, the bodies were taken out in trucks and taken to mass graves, where they were buried without anyone seeing.
Before being executed, the prisoners went through a military court where, witnesses told Amnesty, They were declared guilty regardless of their response.. In fact, the sentences handed down by the court were based on false confessions obtained through torture. The condemned, who did not know their sentence until minutes before their execution, had no right to defend themselves nor to a lawyer.
Guilty in any case and deprived of food
In addition to hanging, prisoners also died from torture such as deprivation of water or food or also certain medicationspoints out the aforementioned NGO in its report ‘Human slaughterhouse: Mass hangings and extermination in the Syrian Saydnaya prison’, carried out through interviews with 84 people, among whom were prisoners, judges or officials. In that study, they explained how when carrying food, the guards threw it on the ground, where it mixed with blood and dirt. This led to a reduction in the weight of the prisoners compared to their image before entering there.
One of the characteristics of the way of acting in this prison was the secrecy: According to ‘France24’, no NGO had access to the center. To do this, it was necessary for both the Military Police – in charge of managing it – and the military intelligence services to authorize entry.
The center, with a total area of approximately 1.4 square kilometers, belongs to the Ministry of Defense. According to Amnesty International, the complex is made up of two buildings that can accommodate between 10,000 and 20,000 people. For 13 years, since the Arab Spring, those people who are suspected of opposing the al Assad regime ended up arriving there.
They heard their companions suffocate
“I ran like crazy until I reached the prison,” Aida Taher, a 65-year-old woman, told AFP. He was going to look for his brother, who had been there since 2012. “They have already oppressed us for a long time. “We want our children to come home,” he added.
In general, Amnesty reports, people who ended up in that prison, they had disappeared forcibly and they had been kept secretly there. Separated from what was their world and from those who were part of it.
People who have not been executed and who have managed to survive, suffer psychological consequences from the situations they experienced. Testimonies cited by Amnesty tell how from their cells, located on the upper floor where the hangings were carried out, andThey heard their companions suffocate to death. In addition, many claim to have been raped and even forced to rape other prisoners.
Hours after the fall of Bashar al Assad’s regime this weekend, the prisoners who were there were released. “What’s happening?”; they asked themselves, quoted by AFP. “You’re free, it’s over!” responded another man who was recording them with a cell phone. «Bashar is over. “We have crushed it.” In the video you can see dozens of emaciated men, some of whom are too weak to walk and carried by their companions. Many of them present the suffering of these years in their bodies, crippled by torture, weakened by illness and thin by hunger.
#Secretly #hanged #starved #raped #Sednaya #prison #human #slaughterhouse #Assad #regime #tortured #thousands #people
