Slaughterhouse of humans… Syria’s dreadful prison where thousands were killed, the methods of torture will shock you
The 13-year rebellion in Syria finally forced Bashar al-Assad to flee the country. With this, the five-decade-long rule of the Assad family in Syria came to an end. When Islamic rebel forces led by Islamic extremist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered the capital Damascus, people started celebrating. The rebels started releasing prisoners who had been held in government prisons for years. The most infamous among these is Saidnaya, which is called the slaughterhouse of humans.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had said in a report of the year 2021 that more than 1 lakh people have been killed in prisons during the rule of Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Of these, more than 30,000 people were killed in Saidnaya prison alone. This prison has been notorious for its torture, murder and forced disappearance.
Center of crimes against humanity
Amnesty International had reported in its report that since 2011, Saidnaya prison has been used to further the policies of Assad’s brutal regime. The report described the cruelty in Saidnaya prison as a crime against humanity. Amnesty’s report states that there were two detention centers in Saidnaya prison. A red building in which civilians were kept after the rebellion began. At the same time, the white building has offices and protesting soldiers were kept.
According to the report, thousands of prisoners have been secretly killed in the red building. Before the hanging, the victims were taken out of the cells. After this, they were taken to a cell in the basement of the red building, where they were kept for two to three hours. During this time the prisoners were beaten badly. At midnight, they were blindfolded and taken to the white building in delivery trucks and hanged.
Mass execution of Assad opponents
The report states that this used to happen once or twice a week. Prisoners were hanged in groups of 20 to 50 people each time. They were informed about the death sentence a few minutes before the execution. They were not even told when the execution would take place. They did not even know how they would die until the noose was put around their neck. After the execution, they were loaded into a truck and taken away and buried in mass graves.
An Amnesty report prepared after testimony from prison workers and detainees estimated that between September 2011 and December 2015, 5000 to 13000 people were hanged in prison. Amnesty International has found no evidence of executions since 2015. But prisoners are still transferred to prisons. So there is no reason to believe that the death penalty has stopped.
Prisoners were raped
According to Amnesty’s report, prisoners are regularly tortured. This includes everything from beatings to sexual violence. During this time, many prisoners became victims of a mental journey. A prisoner told Amnesty in his testimony that ‘no prisoner of Saidnaya ever tells about the treatment meted out there, because it is very humiliating.’ He told that the guards used to rape young prisoners. He said that no one would admit this, but this happened often. Those with whom this happened could never live like before.
