Original image, White Helmets
- Writer, Matt Murphy
- Name the person who wrote the story, BBC News
Since the fall of the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria last Sunday, civilians in the country have been hoping to find out about their relatives locked up in Saydnaya Prison, the highest security prison, which is notorious.
In the 1980s, the prison was established in a small town 30 kilometers north of Damascus.
Saydnaya prison is where the Assad family kept opponents during their rule for years.
The prison, which human rights groups have dubbed “Myanka”, has been holding thousands of people in prison where they have been tortured and sentenced to different types of punishment since 2011.
Not everyone knows the condition of the prison because everything is done in secret, and the picture of the inside of the prison has never been seen.
Information about the prison can only be obtained when interviewing the former guards or the detainees.
But the information obtained from the human rights organizations and the US State Department gives a chance to understand what it is like inside the prison, which has become a place where Assad commits atrocities and revenge.
Prison escape
It was in 1987 that people were taken to the Saydnaya prison, that is after 16 years of the rule of former President Hafeez al-Assad, the father of Bashar al-Assad.
When the prison first opened, there were two detention facilities. There is a so-called white house, which human rights groups say is set aside to lock up soldiers and people who are deemed disobedient to the government. It is a curved building built in the southeast of the prison.
Then the red house, where this is the real place where people are kept, is also where the opponents are kept. And the building has the shape of a stone.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 people are held in the two buildings, according to human rights groups that have spoken with the inmates.
Some videos that have been circulating on social media since Sunday, show a large room in the prison with many security cameras that illuminate the corners of the prison.
A report by the human rights organization Amnesty International in 2017, quoted former prison guards as saying that after the country’s civil war in 2011, all prisoners detained in the White House were removed and replaced by those arrested in during the protests against the government of Bashar al-Assad.
A former official told Amnesty that since 2011, the prison has become the main prison for politicians.
The human rights group also mentioned the ex-prisoners who were kept in the prison in the red house section saying that they are the ones who are being tortured including beatings and rape and denying them food and medicine.
There is a room in the basement of the White House building, which Amnesty spoke to as the place where people are killed, the people who are detained are taken to this room and hanged.
An old security guard said that the names of those who will be killed are taken from the red house during lunch.
After that, the security guards take those whose names appear in the list and take them to this room which holds 100 people and from that time they stopped beating them and other tortures.
People who are taken from red houses are usually taken at night, especially when the night falls.
After washing them, their faces are covered and they are taken to the room where they are hanged.
According to Amnesty, in 2012 the size of the room was increased.
Amnesty said that after the end of the Assad regime, some video images released by the rebels who overthrew the Assad regime showed ropes hanging people in Saydnaya prison.
Human rights groups have estimated that more than 30,000 prisoners have been killed in prisons, some by hanging, some because of torture and others as a result of receiving proper care when they were sick. According to some inmates, they between 2018 and 2021, 500 prisoners were killed.
In 2017, the US State Department claimed that the authorities in Syria were burying people in the part of the prison where the prisoners who were killed or died were buried.
Strict security measures
Throughout the history of the prison, it was surrounded by full security.
Outside the prison, there are 200 soldiers of the army guarding the area, 250 intelligence officers, and police, according to a report by a human rights group AMDSP.
Troops from the 21st division of the country’s army were called to protect the prison because of their loyalty to the country’s government.
Since the fall of the Assad regime, civilians have been asked to avoid walking around the prison, because there are human rights groups that say there are graves around it.
Some photos released by the White Helmet volunteer group in Syria show how the walls of the prison are surrounded by steel wire.
The Assad government has always denied the accusations made against it, especially by international non-governmental organizations, saying that everything that is being said about the prison is nonsense.
Amnesty International said that the families of people suspected of being detained in Saydnaya prison, said that as a result of the fall of the Assad regime, they will now want the fate of their relatives whether they are in prison or not.
