Report
Broken bodies and corpses in Assad's Sednaya slaughterhouse
According to some accounts, not only did some prisoners who emerged struggle to comprehend that Assad was gone, some didn’t even know that his father Hafez al-Assad had died in 2000.
Sednaya Prison near Damascus was the “human slaughterhouse” where human beings gave up their conscience, beliefs, rationality, empathy, awareness and everything that connected them to humanity. A place meant not only to deprive alleged offenders of their freedom, but a lawless space intended to break the soul and crush the dignity of the enemy who had dared to think differently from those in power.
After the seizure of power in Damascus, Hay'at Tahrir al Sham militants took control of the notorious prison on Sunday. Prisoners emerged from its depths, many frail and emaciated, greeted by tearful family members who in many cases had no idea their loved ones were still alive. Many of them believed they had been executed.
Among the broken and battered bodies, freedom had become a distant memory. Videos show that many prisoners needed to be pushed to leave, unable to believe that they were actually getting out. According to some accounts, not only did some prisoners struggle to comprehend that Assad was gone, some didn’t even know that his father Hafez al-Assad had died in 2000.
Located 30 kilometers north of the Syrian capital of Damascus, since 1986 the Sednaya military prison became the place where military personnel who opposed the regime of Hafez al-Assad were incarcerated. Al-Assad had come to power in a coup against President Salah Jadid and the Ba'ath Party leadership, and feared the dissidents among the military.
Over time, the prison became the place where the Syrian state silently tortured and massacred its own people. Most of the victims were civilians who had done nothing more than dare to oppose the government in even the smallest ways.
“There are no interrogations at Saydnaya. Torture isn’t used to obtain information, but seemingly as a way to degrade, punish and humiliate. Prisoners are targeted relentlessly, unable to “confess” to save themselves from further beatings,” Amnesty wrote. According to the NGO, between 5,000 and 13,000 people were executed between 2011 and 2015, mostly by hanging.
On Monday, many people continued to search the dark corridors of Sednaya in hopes of finding their still-missing loved ones. By Tuesday, the Syrian civil defense group White Helmets announced they were ending their search as they had found no more hidden cells or prisoners beyond those already released.
Syrian prisons, also present in other cities across the country, have been a key pillar of support for the al-Assad regime. More than 136,000 people had been incarcerated in Syria's brutal prison network before the rebel advance, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
Human Rights Watch has found that there is “evidence of widespread torture, starvation, beatings, and disease in Syrian government detention facilities,” in what amounts to a crime against humanity in which those who participated indirectly or chose to turn a blind eye are also complicit.
The legacy of Sednaya prison is a chilling reminder of the brutality of the Assad regime. The true extent of the horrors committed there may never be fully uncovered. But for survivors and families of the disappeared, the fight for justice is far from over.
Syria’s path to reform and reconstruction will be a long one, and there are very few sincere friends it might count on. The very notion sounds much like a fantasy, since in the world of politics everyone is pursuing their own interests.
Unfortunately, history in the Middle East teaches us that regimes will come and go, and the one that comes next is not always better. One can hope, at least, that there won’t be another regime in Damascus that will need a Sednaya to bolster its rule.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/i-corpi-spezzati-riemersi-dal-carcere-di-sednaya-il-mattatoio-di-assad on 2024-12-11