Assad's torture prison is worst I have seen
In the last few days the entrance has been repainted in the green, white and black of Syria's revolutionary flag. The new colours did not dispel the sinister atmosphere of the place.
As I walked through the gates, I thought of the despair that must have gripped the thousands of Syrians who made the same journey.
One estimate is that more than 30,000 detainees were killed in Saydnaya in the years since the start of the Syrian war in 2011. That is a large proportion of the more than 100,000 people, almost all men but including thousands of women – as well as children – who disappeared without trace into Bashar al-Assad's gulag.
Other parts of Assad's prison system were less cruel. Phone calls home were allowed, and families were allowed to visit.
But Saydnaya was the dark and rotten heart of the regime. Fear of being consigned there and killed without anyone knowing what had happened was a central part of the Assad regime's system of coercion and repression.
The authorities did not have to tell families who had been incarcerated there. Allowing them to fear the worst was another way of applying pressure. The regime kept its boot on the throat of Syrians because of the power, reach and savagery of its myriad and overlapping intelligence agencies, and because of the routine use of torture and execution.
I was in other infamous prisons in the days after they were liberated, including Abu Salim, the former Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi's notorious jail in Tripoli and Pul-e-Charki outside Kabul in Afghanistan.
Neither were as foul and pestilent as Saydnaya. In its overcrowded cells men had to urinate into plastic bags as their access to latrines was limited.
When the locks were smashed open, they left behind their filthy rags and scraps of blankets which were all they had to cover themselves as they slept on the floor. Torture and execution have already been documented in Saydnaya.
FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62w5q52pngo
No comments:
Post a Comment