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Sednaya Prison

Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."[4]

Sednaya Prison
Satellite view
LocationSaidnaya, Rif Dimashq Governorate, Syria
Coordinates33°39′54″N 36°19′43″E / 33.66500°N 36.32861°E / 33.66500; 36.32861
StatusDisputed

Overall, human rights organizations have identified over 27 prisons and detention centers run by Assad's regime around the country where detainees are routinely tortured and killed. A defector from Assad's sources smuggled out tens of thousands of photographs from these prisons, showing the bodies of those who had been murdered. The defector stated that he had personally photographed the dead and that archives of thousand more such photographs of other victims existed.[5]

A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die".[6]

Wide variety of inhumane torture practices are carried out in the prison; ranging from perpetual beatings, sexual assaults, decapitations, rapes, burnings to what are known as the "flying carpets".[7] In 2017, the US State Department alleged that a crematorium had been built at the prison to dispose of the bodies of the executed, although Amnesty's investigation did not find evidence of this having happened.

About the Sednaya Prison edit

Located 30 kilometers (19 mi) north of the Syrian capital Damascus, Sednaya Military Prison is known for its torture of people and innocent civilians that started the revolution in 2011. It is designed for the purpose of quietly slaughtering innocent civilians, men, women, children and the elderly. Even children are born inside the prison due to the brutal rape of the women by the guards. Not only women are raped, children and men are also subject to rape and sexual assult.[8] There are different social groups who are at risk. These can be groups of labourers, business people, students, bloggers, university professors, lawyers, doctors, activists defending the rights of minority groups, people helping their neighbours or journalists. Detainees may be either men, women or even children.[9]

The prison consists of two buildings with a total of 10,000–20,000 detainees and is under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Defense while operated by the Military Police. Detainees have usually spent months or years in detention elsewhere before being transferred to Sednaya. It was not until after the 2011 crisis when this started to happen. The way in which detainees are being transferred to this facility has been internationally recognized and criticized, mainly by Amnesty International. The transfers usually take place after holding unfair trials at a secret military court.[8] In interviews with Amnesty, prisoners described the trials as sham for lasting only one to three minutes. While some prisoners would be told they were being transferred to a civilian prison when they instead were to be executed,[10] other detainees do not even get to see a judge.[8]

Recognized unfair trials edit

The Syrian Mus’ab al-Hariri belonged to the banned organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, and lived in exile in Saudi Arabia until his return to Syria in 2002 with his mother. She worried that their return would cause problems for her son because of his political stand but the Syrian Embassy in Saudi Arabia had assured her that this would not happen. However, shortly after al-Hariri's return, he was sentenced by the Syrian Security forces on 24 July 2002.[11] At the time of arrest, he was only 14 years old.[12] Even though the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention announced al-Hariri's detention as arbitrary, the authorities took no step to amend his situation. The UN Working Group based its announcement on their assessment that he did not receive a fair trial. Four main issues that were raised were his young age when arrested, that he had been held in isolation for more than two years, reportedly tortured and that he was sentenced by the SSSC (Supreme State Security Court) in June 2005 to six years in prison despite no substantial evidence. All the SSSC knew was that al-Hariri belonged to the banned Muslim Brotherhood.[13]

The Syrian Human Rights Committee reported in 2004 about people being arrested the same year because of political reasons. To offer the suspected individuals human rights defenders and lawyers was not self-evident and as in the case of Mus’ab al-Hariri, hundreds of prisoners remained in long detention without trial or following sentences enforced after unfair trials. It was also reported that no respect was given to the poor health condition of prisoners and that these were still held in rigorous conditions.[14]

The 2008 Massacre edit

According to The Syrian Human Rights Committee, the military police changed all the locks of the prison cells on the night of 4 July 2008. On the day after a search operation was launched through all the prisons quarters, in which the security guards trampled on copies of the Quran. The act triggered fury among Muslim detainees who rushed to collect the Quran copies. The guards opened fire and killed nine of the prisoners.[15][16] Among the nine killed prisoners, they were able to identify eight of them, those were: Zakaria Affash, Mohammed Mahareesh, Abdulbaqi Khattab, Ahmed Shalaq, Khalid Bilal, Mo’aid Al-Ali, Mohannad Al-Omar and Khader Alloush. Clashes have been reported after this incident where the total number of victims reached 25 detainees. However, the committee could not ascertain their identities.[16]

Testimonies edit

These testimonies are collected from three different sources. Two documentaries and a series of articles. The Black Box: The Death in Sednaya by Al Jazeera, The Road to Sednaya: We have Changed, Omar Abdullah by Orient News, and Sednaya Death speaks, Zaman Alwasl Newspaper. According to many detainees, in 2005 Ali Kher Bek became the director of the prison and he was very strict and harsh with detainees. He worsened their life conditions by halting visits and cutting electricity on the prison for a long period of time.

Diab Serriya, a former detainee, had been accused of forming a youth opposition group. He was arrested in 2006 and released in 2011 after a general amnesty. “ We had the feeling that the prisoners would rebel in any moment because the living situation was unbearable.” [17] Diab said that on 26 March 2008, a fight broke between a prisoner and a security guard, which led to Ali Kher Bek's rage. On the next day he walked, with other security forces, through the prison shouting at the prisoners and insulting them. He visited all the dungeons of the prison. The security forces dragged prisoners in charge of all the prison's wards and punished them. Some detainees kept shouting “Allah Akbar” and banging on the metal doors. A rebellion broke out and the prison went out of control.

Serriya told Zaman Alwasel Newspaper that security forces used tear gas and opened fire in the air to intimidate prisoners, who most of them ran to the roof and started to burn blankets, plastic bags and wooden pieces, to send a message that the prison was in chaos and urgent helped was needed.[18] When the security forces could not exert control over the prison, the government launched negotiations with the prisoners, through which it agreed on providing fair trials for detainees, allowing family visits again, enhancing the living conditions, increasing the daily breaks's time, improving the quality of beverage and drinks, providing a proper medical care, in addition to immediate change for the unfair treatment of the prisoners. This incident was known as “The first Rebellion” and lasted for one day.[17]

After this incident the prison went into loose policy. The internal doors were left open all the time, prisoners started to defy the security forces, and lenient treatment was obvious.,.[17][19] The effect of “the first rebellion” had lasted till 5 July 2008 when the director launched an offensive to discipline the prisoners. Many fights broke between the prisoners and the military police until prisoners overpowered them. In addition to exerting control over the whole prison, and retaining more than 1245 out of 1500 from military police. From the outer fence of the prison, security forces opened fire and killed the first group, which attempted to flee the prison due to the unbearable situations. The group was: Wael al-Khous, Zakaria Affash, Daham Jebran, Ahmed Shalaq, Mohammed Abbas, Hassan Al-Jaberie, Mohammed Eld Al-Ahmad, Khader Alloush, Abdulbaqi Khattab, Maen Majarish and Mo’aid Al-Ali. Fearing suffocation of the tear gas and the running from the bloody scenes inside the building, the prisoners dragged some of the hostages to the roof so they can communicate with the military forces outside and find a way out of the dilemma. However, the governmental forces opened fire and killed almost 30 military police hostages and some prisoners who were with them. In addition to 10 hostages were killed by the prisoners and 6 committed a suicide out of fear to be killed by the prisoners.[18] After a long battle, military reinforcements from the capital arrived to Sednaya and laid siege around the prison. Some tried to break in but in vain. After 10 days of negotiation, the government agreed on a evacuating the injured who faced torture in Tishreen hospital and 6 of them died under torture there. The government promised to punish the perpetrators and told the prisoners that the director of Tishreen hospital was fired. It also improved the quality of the beverage. During this time prisoners released the hostages. And better treatment has appeared but not for long.[18]

Reactions to the massacre edit

While Sarah Leah Whitson, Director of the Middle East and North Africa human rights said: “President Bashar al-Assad should immediately order an independent investigation into the police's use of lethal force at Sednaya prison”, SANA, the Syrian official news agency, issued a short press release on July 6, stating that "a number of prisoners…incited chaos and breached public order in the prison and attacked other fellow prisoners…during an inspection by the prison administration." The agency reported that the situation required "the intervention of the unit of guards to bring order to the prison."[15] Ammar al-Qurabi the director of the National Organization for Human Rights commented on SANA's release by asking to form a committee of activists which can visit the detainees and ascertain their conditions and he confirmed that the number of prisoners in Sednaya was between 1500 and 2000. 200 of them had Islamic backgrounds and most of them participated in the Iraq war. Al-Qurabi called to investigating the massacre's perpetrators and announcing the investigation's result. Also, he asked for enhancing the living conditions and the medical care of the detainees.[20]

Other human rights abuses edit

The Sednaya prison massacre was not the only incident of human rights abuses in the prison's history. Other examples range from particular testimonies of people who had been incarcerated in Sednaya to organized leaks and research done on the topic. Omar al-Shogre, a Syrian teenager has testified that he had gone through 11 Syrian prisons during his several years of imprisonment. Sednaya was the final one. He had described the events in Sednaya as beginning with a "welcome party" during which new inmates were beaten with "metal parts from a tank". In Shogre's case, one officer beat ten newly arrived inmates. He states that "for 15 days [he] couldn't open [his] eyes or get up". After a month in Sednaya, Shogre was taken to a trial under the accusations for terrorism. The trial, he says, lasted for 5 seconds.[21] He contracted tuberculosis there and witnessed what he thinks is an occurrence of "organ harvesting".[22]

Sednaya had come into the public eye when the 2014 Syrian detainee report, also known as the Caesar report[23] got unveiled. It was authored by the legal team consisting of The Right Honourable Sir Desmond De Silva QC, the former Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Professor Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, the former lead prosecutor of ex-President Slobodan Milošević of Yugoslavia, before the International Criminal Tribune for the former Yugoslavia, and Professor David M. Crane, the first Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, with the help of a forensic team.[24] The legal and forensic teams came to the conclusion that the photos Caesar took were credible, and that they clearly showed "signs of starvation, brutal beatings, strangulation, and other forms of torture and killing."[25] While the most of the 55,000 photos encompassing around 11,000 victims from the report are from other detention facilities in Damascus, some of them are also from the Sednaya prison. Prisoners were also often transferred between different facilities: some detainees were transferred to Sednaya from the Mezze Air Force Branch, while others were taken from Sednaya to Tishreen.[26] In early 2017 the Sednaya Military Prison again came into the public eye when an Amnesty International report was released on February 7.[27] The report, the result of the research conducted by Amnesty International which took place between December 2015 and December 2016, raises a plethora of accusations against the Syrian regime. It alleges that the regime has at its highest instances, authorized the killings of thousands of people in the Sednaya prison since 2011. After interviewing 84 people, out of which 31 were former detainees, Amnesty International has concluded that the regime has implemented systematic torture in Sednaya. One former detainee, Salam, a lawyer from Aleppo described the torture process:

"The soldiers will practice their 'hospitality' with each new group of detainees during the 'welcome party'… You are thrown to the ground and they use different instruments for the beatings: electric cables with exposed copper wire ends – they have little hooks so they take a part of your skin – normal electric cables, plastic water pipes of different sizes and metal bars. Also, they have created what they call the 'tank belt', which is made out of tyre that has been cut into strips... They make a very specific sound; it sounds like a small explosion. I was blindfolded the whole time, but I would try to see somehow. All you see is blood: your own blood, the blood of others. After one hit, you lose your sense of what is happening. You're in shock. But then the pain comes."[28]

Another former detainee is Samer al-Ahmed who, on a regular basis, was forced to squeeze his head through the small hatch near the bottom of his cell door. It was then straightened out by the prison guards when they, with all their weight, jumped on his head. This required that al-Ahmed's head was pressed against the edge of the hatch. The guards would continue the torture until blood started flowing across the floor.[29]

Torture methods in Sednaya varied. One common interrogation technique called shabeh was described by one of the witnesses: "They had me stand on the barrel, and they tied the rope around my wrists. Then they took away the barrel. There was nothing below my feet. They were dangling in the air. They brought three sticks… [They were] hitting me everywhere… After they were done beating me with the wooden sticks, they took the cigarettes. They were putting them out all over my body. It felt like a knife excavating my body, cutting me apart."[30] Other methods of torture consisted of leaving people in stress positions while beating them or torturing them with electricity.[30]

Describing the nature of the ongoing torture in the prison, the Amnesty report states:

"In Saydnaya, torture is not used to force a detainee to “confess”, as it is in branches of the security forces, but instead as a method of punishment and degradation. The most common form of torture used at Saydnaya is regular and brutal beatings. Detainees told Amnesty International that the beatings they endured were sometimes so severe that they caused life-long damage and disability or death... Former detainees told Amnesty International that they were also subjected to sexual violence at Saydnaya, including rape. According to former detainee “Hassan”: “They were making people take their clothes off, and touch each other in sensitive places, and rape each other too. I went through this only one time, but I heard about it happening so much.”[31]

The detainees were also deprived of food and water, and had been raped and forced to rape each other.[32] One of the testifications states: "They beat me until I was lying on the ground and then they kicked me with their military boots, in the places where I have had my hip operations, until I passed out. When I woke up, I was back in the solitary cell – they had dragged me back there from that room – but my trousers had been opened and moved down a bit, my abaya [full-length robe] was open and my undershirt was moved up. Everything was hurting, so I couldn't tell if I had been raped. It was overwhelming pain everywhere."[30] When they did get food, it was often mixed with blood.[21] Amnesty International has managed to confirm the names of 375 individuals executed in Sednaya prison,[33] and while the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, suggests that tens of thousands of detainees have died in Sednaya and other government-run detention centers since 2011 as a result of the extermination policies,[33] Amnesty International itself calculates the number of deaths to between 5,000 and 13,000.[30]

The Syrian Justice Ministry denied the report issued by Amnesty International, describing it as "devoid of truth" and considering it to be a part of a smear campaign targeted against Syrian government. The Syrian Justice Ministry holds a view that motivation for the allegations to smear the Syrian government's international reputation come from recent "military victories against terrorist groups".[34][35]

After the 2011 uprisings edit

After months of anti-government protests in 2011, many prisoners, including secular and Islamist detainees, were released in several amnesties.[36] Zahran Alloush, Abu Shadi Aboud (brother of Hassan Aboud[37]) and Ahmed Abu Issa were some of the more prominent prisoners released from the prison. After their release, many took up arms against the regime and became leaders of Islamist rebel groups including Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar ash-Sham and Suqour al-Sham Brigade in the Syrian Civil War.

There have repeatedly been reports on inhumane conditions for detainees in Sednaya (as well as other Syrian prisons), ranging from torture and malnutrition to spontaneous executions without fair trials.[1][38][39][40]

"Seventy-five per cent of people who go into Sednaya do not come out alive. It is a field court, where most 'judges' are from the secret police."

— A Syrian lawyer working with prisoners in Hama[1]

Amnesty's reconstruction of Sednaya Prison edit

The lack of accessibility to reports from journalists and monitoring groups have made reliable information about the prison very difficult to find. The only available sources on the incidents inside the Sednaya prison derive from the memories of former detainees. In April 2016, Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture traveled to Turkey to meet five Sednaya survivors. The researchers used architectural and acoustic modeling to reconstruct the prison and the survivors’ experiences at detention. As there are no images of the prison and because the prisoners were held in darkness under strictly enforced silence, researchers had to depend entirely on their memories and acute experience of sound, footsteps, door opening and locking and water dripping in the pipes among other things. The fact that prisoners rarely saw daylight, they were, consequently, forced to develop an acute relation to sound. Having to cover their eyes with their hands whenever a guard entered the room made them become attuned to the smallest sounds. In a video interview, a former Sednaya detainee says "You try to build an image based on the sounds you hear. You know the person by the sound of his footsteps. You can tell the food times by the sound of the bowl. If you hear screaming, you know newcomers have arrived. When there is no screaming, we know they are accustomed to Sednaya."[41] Sound became the instrument by which inmates navigated and measured their environment. Therefore, sound also became one of the essential tools with which the prison could be digitally reconstructed. The sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan used a technique of “echo profiling” which made it possible for him to decide the size of cells, stairwells, and corridors. He played different sound reflections and asked former inmates to match these tones of different decibel levels to the levels of specific incidents inside the prison.

Based on these testimonies and with the help of an architect working with 3D modeling software, Amnesty and Forensic Architecture have constructed a model on the entire prison. As they remembered, the witnesses added objects like torture tools, blankets, furniture, and areas where they recalled them being used. In Sednaya, the architecture of the prison emerges not only as a location of torture but itself as an instrument in its perpetration. Forensic Architecture's project on Sednaya is part of a larger campaign run by Amnesty International. The project aims to pressure the Syrian government to allow independent monitors into the detention centres. Amnesty urged Russia and the United States to use their power to admit independent monitors to investigate conditions in Syria's torture prisons.[42][43][41]

The 2017 Amnesty Report concludes:

"Saydnaya Military Prison is a human slaughterhouse. The bodies of Saydnaya’s victims are taken away by the truckload. Many are hanged, secretly, in the middle of the night. Others die as a result of torture, and many are killed slowly through the systematic deprivation of food, water, medicine and medical care. It is inconceivable that this is not authorized by the highest levels of the Syrian political leadership."[44]

Crematorium accusations edit

On May 15, 2017, the United States Department of State accused the Syrian government of engaging in mass executions at the prison, and burning the bodies of the executed in a crematorium built in Sednaya Prison in an effort to conceal the killings.[45][46] According to the State Department a crematorium was constructed with the purpose of hiding the evidence of the thousands murdered at the prison.[47] The State Department "released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The photographs, taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use."[45] Evidence suggesting crematorium use includes 2015 photographs showing all buildings at the complex covered in rooftop snowmelt except for a single building (suggesting "a significant internal heat source") as well as a discharge stack, a likely firewall, and a likely air intake.[47][46] The State Department, in a later press briefing, agreed that snowmelt on the roof presented as one of the pieces of evidence "consistent with a crematorium" could possibly just indicate it is a warmer part of a building.[48]

Acting assistant secretary of state for the Middle East Stuart E. Jones stated that as many as 50 prisoners a day were killed in mass hangings.[47][45] Jones stated: "Although the regime's many atrocities are well documented, we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Sednaya prison."[46]

Amnesty International, who had interviewed former guards and inmates of the prison, have remarked that none of them have told them about the existence of the crematorium. According to other escapees of the prison, the bodies were buried outside of the compound.[49]

Former inmates edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Broomfield, Matt (2016-05-05). "Prisoners riot over claims President Assad is about to start torturing and executing them". The Independent. Retrieved 2017-05-15.
  2. ^ Washington Post, December 2018 syria bodies
  3. ^ "Torture victims | Civilian from Daraa dies in Sednaya prison". 9 January 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  4. ^ Editorial Board (February 11, 2017). "A 'human slaughterhouse' in Syria". The Washington Post.
  5. ^ Houry, Nadim (16 December 2015). "If the Dead Could Speak". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  6. ^ "Former Detainee Describes Atrocities Inside Syrian Prison". www.wbur.org. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  7. ^ . Amnesty International. 2016. Archived from the original on 9 September 2016.
  8. ^ a b c "Saydnaya, Inside a Syrian Torture Prison". Amnesty International. 2016-08-16. Retrieved 2017-05-15.
  9. ^ [1], Amnesty, Detention in Syria, 2017.
  10. ^ Robins-Early, Nick (2017-02-07). "Syria Killed Thousands In Secret Mass Hangings Inside Prison, Amnesty Reports". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-05-15.
  11. ^ [2], Amnesty, Public statement, 2005.
  12. ^ [Human Rights Watch. 'Far from justice: Syria's Supreme State Security Court', 2009, p. 49]
  13. ^ [3], Amnesty International Report 2009 - Syria.
  14. ^ [4], The Syrian Human Rights Committee, Amnesty International Annual Report on Syria Covering events from January – December 2002, 2004.
  15. ^ a b [5], Human Rights Watch, Syria: Investigate Sednaya Prison Deaths, 2008.
  16. ^ a b [6], The Syrian Human Rights Committee, Sednaya Prison Massacre, 2009.
  17. ^ a b c [7], Al Jazeera, The Black Box: The Death in Sednaya, 2015.
  18. ^ a b c [8], Zaman Alwasl, Sednaya Death speaks, 2013.
  19. ^ [9], Oreint News, The Road to Sednaya: We have Changed, Omar Abdullah, 2015.
  20. ^ [10], BBC Arabic, Damascus: Extremists Behind Sednaya Prison's riot, 2008.
  21. ^ a b [11], Al Jazeera, How I'm Still Alive: Surviving Assad's Prison Cells, 2017.
  22. ^ [12], Middle East Eye, Former detainees recount torture organ harvesting Syria's prisons, 2016.
  23. ^ [13], ABC News, Mass deaths in Syrian jails amount to crime of extermination, 2016
  24. ^ [14], The Guardian, A Report into the credibility of certain evidence with regard to Torture and Execution of Persons Incarcerated by the current Syrian regime., 2011.
  25. ^ [15], The Guardian, A Report into the credibility of certain evidence with regard to Torture and Execution of Persons Incarcerated by the current Syrian regime., 2011.
  26. ^ [16], Human Rights Watch, Mass deaths and torture, 2015
  27. ^ [17], Amnesty report, Syria: Human slaughterhouse: mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison, Syria, 2017
  28. ^ [18], Amnesty report, Syria: Human slaughterhouse: mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison, Syria, 2017, p. 32
  29. ^ [19], The Guardian: 'The worst place on earth': inside Assad's brutal Saydnaya prison, 2016
  30. ^ a b c d [20], Amnesty report, Syria: Human slaughterhouse: mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison, Syria, 2017, p. 6
  31. ^ (PDF). Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street, London WC1X 0DW, UK: Amnesty International. 2017. p. 11. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 December 2021.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  32. ^ [21], Amnesty report, Syria: Human slaughterhouse: mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison, Syria, 2017, p. 33
  33. ^ a b [22], Amnesty report, Syria: Human slaughterhouse: mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison, Syria, 2017, p. 40
  34. ^ [23], Reuters, Amnesty says Syria executes, tortures thousands at prison; government denies, 2017
  35. ^ "Assad government responds to compelling evidence 13,000 killed in one prison". Independent.co.uk. 8 February 2017. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  36. ^ Abouzeid, Rania (23 June 2014). "The Jihad Next Door". Politico. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  37. ^ "Behind the Black Flag: The Recruitment of an ISIS Killer". The New York Times. 21 December 2015.
  38. ^ "Thousands of Inmates Killed in Sednaya Prison from Torture, Disease, Malnutrition: Former Prisoner". The Syrian Observer. 2015.
  39. ^ "Ex-detainee tells about horror of Sednaya Prison, 285 Security Branch". Zaman al Wasl. 2016.
  40. ^ "If the Dead Could Speak - Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria's Detention Facilities". Human Rights Watch. 2015.
  41. ^ a b [24], The Guardian, ‘The worst place on earth’: inside Assad's brutal Saydnaya prison, 2016.
  42. ^ [25], Amnesty International, Explore Saydnaya, 2017.
  43. ^ [26], Forensic Architecture, Case Saydnaya, 2017.
  44. ^ (PDF). Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street, London WC1X 0DW, UK: Amnesty International. 2017. p. 11. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 December 2021.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  45. ^ a b c Matthew Lee & Vivian Salama (May 15, 2017). "US: Syria is burning bodies to hide proof of mass killings". Associated Press.
  46. ^ a b c Harris, Gardiner (May 15, 2017). "Syrian Crematory Is Hiding Mass Killings of Prisoners, U.S. Says". The New York Times.
  47. ^ a b c DeYoung, Karen (May 15, 2017). "U.S. says Syria built crematorium to handle mass prisoner killings". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  48. ^ "Briefing by Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones on Syria". Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  49. ^ Sydow, Christoph (16 May 2017). "Syrien: USA bleiben Beweise für Assads Leichenöfen in Sednaja schuldig". Der Spiegel.
  50. ^ Aron Lund (17 June 2013). "Freedom fighters? Cannibals? The truth about Syria's rebels". The Independent. Retrieved 7 November 2013.
  51. ^ "هيثم المالح". Al Jazeera. 2011-03-10. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  52. ^ "Ex-captain of national football team 'barbarically tortured to death in Syrian regime prison'". Mirror. 6 October 2016. Retrieved 7 December 2017.

Notes edit

  1. ^ Sources:
    • (PDF). Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street, London WC1X 0DW, UK: Amnesty International. 2017. p. 11. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 December 2021.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
    • al-Jablawi, Hosam (13 July 2017). . Atlantic Council. Archived from the original on 20 July 2017.
    • . The Washington Post. 11 February 2017. Archived from the original on 14 February 2017.
    • . Annecy Festival. Archived from the original on 25 March 2023.

External links edit

  • "Révélations sur le massacre de la prison de Saydnaya". Courrier international (in French). 22 September 2011. Retrieved 2015-10-20.
  • "Syria: Investigate Sednaya Prison Deaths". Human Rights Watch. 21 July 2008. Retrieved 2015-10-20.
  • "Saydnaya - Inside a Syrian torture prison". Amnesty International. Retrieved 2016-08-24.
  • "Inside Saydnaya: Syria's Torture Prison ." Amnesty International at YouTube. August 18, 2016.

sednaya, prison, arabic, سجن, صيدنايا, sajn, Ṣaydnāyā, nicknamed, human, slaughterhouse, military, prison, near, damascus, syria, operated, syrian, government, prison, been, used, hold, thousands, prisoners, both, civilian, detainees, anti, government, rebels,. Sednaya Prison Arabic سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnaya nicknamed the Human Slaughterhouse a is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners both civilian detainees and anti government rebels 1 2 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights SOHR estimated in January 2021 that 30 000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture ill treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War 3 while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 that between 5 000 and 13 000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015 4 Sednaya PrisonSatellite viewLocationSaidnaya Rif Dimashq Governorate SyriaCoordinates33 39 54 N 36 19 43 E 33 66500 N 36 32861 E 33 66500 36 32861StatusDisputedOverall human rights organizations have identified over 27 prisons and detention centers run by Assad s regime around the country where detainees are routinely tortured and killed A defector from Assad s sources smuggled out tens of thousands of photographs from these prisons showing the bodies of those who had been murdered The defector stated that he had personally photographed the dead and that archives of thousand more such photographs of other victims existed 5 A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at prisoners were also forced into cannibalism but that prison was heaven compared to Sednaya Prison According to the inmate the other prison Branch 215 was to interrogate including through torture but when that was done you were moved to Sednaya to die 6 Wide variety of inhumane torture practices are carried out in the prison ranging from perpetual beatings sexual assaults decapitations rapes burnings to what are known as the flying carpets 7 In 2017 the US State Department alleged that a crematorium had been built at the prison to dispose of the bodies of the executed although Amnesty s investigation did not find evidence of this having happened Contents 1 About the Sednaya Prison 2 Recognized unfair trials 3 The 2008 Massacre 3 1 Testimonies 3 2 Reactions to the massacre 4 Other human rights abuses 5 After the 2011 uprisings 6 Amnesty s reconstruction of Sednaya Prison 7 Crematorium accusations 8 Former inmates 9 References 10 Notes 11 External linksAbout the Sednaya Prison editLocated 30 kilometers 19 mi north of the Syrian capital Damascus Sednaya Military Prison is known for its torture of people and innocent civilians that started the revolution in 2011 It is designed for the purpose of quietly slaughtering innocent civilians men women children and the elderly Even children are born inside the prison due to the brutal rape of the women by the guards Not only women are raped children and men are also subject to rape and sexual assult 8 There are different social groups who are at risk These can be groups of labourers business people students bloggers university professors lawyers doctors activists defending the rights of minority groups people helping their neighbours or journalists Detainees may be either men women or even children 9 The prison consists of two buildings with a total of 10 000 20 000 detainees and is under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Defense while operated by the Military Police Detainees have usually spent months or years in detention elsewhere before being transferred to Sednaya It was not until after the 2011 crisis when this started to happen The way in which detainees are being transferred to this facility has been internationally recognized and criticized mainly by Amnesty International The transfers usually take place after holding unfair trials at a secret military court 8 In interviews with Amnesty prisoners described the trials as sham for lasting only one to three minutes While some prisoners would be told they were being transferred to a civilian prison when they instead were to be executed 10 other detainees do not even get to see a judge 8 Recognized unfair trials editThe Syrian Mus ab al Hariri belonged to the banned organization the Muslim Brotherhood and lived in exile in Saudi Arabia until his return to Syria in 2002 with his mother She worried that their return would cause problems for her son because of his political stand but the Syrian Embassy in Saudi Arabia had assured her that this would not happen However shortly after al Hariri s return he was sentenced by the Syrian Security forces on 24 July 2002 11 At the time of arrest he was only 14 years old 12 Even though the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention announced al Hariri s detention as arbitrary the authorities took no step to amend his situation The UN Working Group based its announcement on their assessment that he did not receive a fair trial Four main issues that were raised were his young age when arrested that he had been held in isolation for more than two years reportedly tortured and that he was sentenced by the SSSC Supreme State Security Court in June 2005 to six years in prison despite no substantial evidence All the SSSC knew was that al Hariri belonged to the banned Muslim Brotherhood 13 The Syrian Human Rights Committee reported in 2004 about people being arrested the same year because of political reasons To offer the suspected individuals human rights defenders and lawyers was not self evident and as in the case of Mus ab al Hariri hundreds of prisoners remained in long detention without trial or following sentences enforced after unfair trials It was also reported that no respect was given to the poor health condition of prisoners and that these were still held in rigorous conditions 14 The 2008 Massacre editAccording to The Syrian Human Rights Committee the military police changed all the locks of the prison cells on the night of 4 July 2008 On the day after a search operation was launched through all the prisons quarters in which the security guards trampled on copies of the Quran The act triggered fury among Muslim detainees who rushed to collect the Quran copies The guards opened fire and killed nine of the prisoners 15 16 Among the nine killed prisoners they were able to identify eight of them those were Zakaria Affash Mohammed Mahareesh Abdulbaqi Khattab Ahmed Shalaq Khalid Bilal Mo aid Al Ali Mohannad Al Omar and Khader Alloush Clashes have been reported after this incident where the total number of victims reached 25 detainees However the committee could not ascertain their identities 16 Testimonies edit These testimonies are collected from three different sources Two documentaries and a series of articles The Black Box The Death in Sednaya by Al Jazeera The Road to Sednaya We have Changed Omar Abdullah by Orient News and Sednaya Death speaks Zaman Alwasl Newspaper According to many detainees in 2005 Ali Kher Bek became the director of the prison and he was very strict and harsh with detainees He worsened their life conditions by halting visits and cutting electricity on the prison for a long period of time Diab Serriya a former detainee had been accused of forming a youth opposition group He was arrested in 2006 and released in 2011 after a general amnesty We had the feeling that the prisoners would rebel in any moment because the living situation was unbearable 17 Diab said that on 26 March 2008 a fight broke between a prisoner and a security guard which led to Ali Kher Bek s rage On the next day he walked with other security forces through the prison shouting at the prisoners and insulting them He visited all the dungeons of the prison The security forces dragged prisoners in charge of all the prison s wards and punished them Some detainees kept shouting Allah Akbar and banging on the metal doors A rebellion broke out and the prison went out of control Serriya told Zaman Alwasel Newspaper that security forces used tear gas and opened fire in the air to intimidate prisoners who most of them ran to the roof and started to burn blankets plastic bags and wooden pieces to send a message that the prison was in chaos and urgent helped was needed 18 When the security forces could not exert control over the prison the government launched negotiations with the prisoners through which it agreed on providing fair trials for detainees allowing family visits again enhancing the living conditions increasing the daily breaks s time improving the quality of beverage and drinks providing a proper medical care in addition to immediate change for the unfair treatment of the prisoners This incident was known as The first Rebellion and lasted for one day 17 After this incident the prison went into loose policy The internal doors were left open all the time prisoners started to defy the security forces and lenient treatment was obvious 17 19 The effect of the first rebellion had lasted till 5 July 2008 when the director launched an offensive to discipline the prisoners Many fights broke between the prisoners and the military police until prisoners overpowered them In addition to exerting control over the whole prison and retaining more than 1245 out of 1500 from military police From the outer fence of the prison security forces opened fire and killed the first group which attempted to flee the prison due to the unbearable situations The group was Wael al Khous Zakaria Affash Daham Jebran Ahmed Shalaq Mohammed Abbas Hassan Al Jaberie Mohammed Eld Al Ahmad Khader Alloush Abdulbaqi Khattab Maen Majarish and Mo aid Al Ali Fearing suffocation of the tear gas and the running from the bloody scenes inside the building the prisoners dragged some of the hostages to the roof so they can communicate with the military forces outside and find a way out of the dilemma However the governmental forces opened fire and killed almost 30 military police hostages and some prisoners who were with them In addition to 10 hostages were killed by the prisoners and 6 committed a suicide out of fear to be killed by the prisoners 18 After a long battle military reinforcements from the capital arrived to Sednaya and laid siege around the prison Some tried to break in but in vain After 10 days of negotiation the government agreed on a evacuating the injured who faced torture in Tishreen hospital and 6 of them died under torture there The government promised to punish the perpetrators and told the prisoners that the director of Tishreen hospital was fired It also improved the quality of the beverage During this time prisoners released the hostages And better treatment has appeared but not for long 18 Reactions to the massacre edit While Sarah Leah Whitson Director of the Middle East and North Africa human rights said President Bashar al Assad should immediately order an independent investigation into the police s use of lethal force at Sednaya prison SANA the Syrian official news agency issued a short press release on July 6 stating that a number of prisoners incited chaos and breached public order in the prison and attacked other fellow prisoners during an inspection by the prison administration The agency reported that the situation required the intervention of the unit of guards to bring order to the prison 15 Ammar al Qurabi the director of the National Organization for Human Rights commented on SANA s release by asking to form a committee of activists which can visit the detainees and ascertain their conditions and he confirmed that the number of prisoners in Sednaya was between 1500 and 2000 200 of them had Islamic backgrounds and most of them participated in the Iraq war Al Qurabi called to investigating the massacre s perpetrators and announcing the investigation s result Also he asked for enhancing the living conditions and the medical care of the detainees 20 Other human rights abuses editThe Sednaya prison massacre was not the only incident of human rights abuses in the prison s history Other examples range from particular testimonies of people who had been incarcerated in Sednaya to organized leaks and research done on the topic Omar al Shogre a Syrian teenager has testified that he had gone through 11 Syrian prisons during his several years of imprisonment Sednaya was the final one He had described the events in Sednaya as beginning with a welcome party during which new inmates were beaten with metal parts from a tank In Shogre s case one officer beat ten newly arrived inmates He states that for 15 days he couldn t open his eyes or get up After a month in Sednaya Shogre was taken to a trial under the accusations for terrorism The trial he says lasted for 5 seconds 21 He contracted tuberculosis there and witnessed what he thinks is an occurrence of organ harvesting 22 Sednaya had come into the public eye when the 2014 Syrian detainee report also known as the Caesar report 23 got unveiled It was authored by the legal team consisting of The Right Honourable Sir Desmond De Silva QC the former Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone Professor Sir Geoffrey Nice QC the former lead prosecutor of ex President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia before the International Criminal Tribune for the former Yugoslavia and Professor David M Crane the first Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone with the help of a forensic team 24 The legal and forensic teams came to the conclusion that the photos Caesar took were credible and that they clearly showed signs of starvation brutal beatings strangulation and other forms of torture and killing 25 While the most of the 55 000 photos encompassing around 11 000 victims from the report are from other detention facilities in Damascus some of them are also from the Sednaya prison Prisoners were also often transferred between different facilities some detainees were transferred to Sednaya from the Mezze Air Force Branch while others were taken from Sednaya to Tishreen 26 In early 2017 the Sednaya Military Prison again came into the public eye when an Amnesty International report was released on February 7 27 The report the result of the research conducted by Amnesty International which took place between December 2015 and December 2016 raises a plethora of accusations against the Syrian regime It alleges that the regime has at its highest instances authorized the killings of thousands of people in the Sednaya prison since 2011 After interviewing 84 people out of which 31 were former detainees Amnesty International has concluded that the regime has implemented systematic torture in Sednaya One former detainee Salam a lawyer from Aleppo described the torture process The soldiers will practice their hospitality with each new group of detainees during the welcome party You are thrown to the ground and they use different instruments for the beatings electric cables with exposed copper wire ends they have little hooks so they take a part of your skin normal electric cables plastic water pipes of different sizes and metal bars Also they have created what they call the tank belt which is made out of tyre that has been cut into strips They make a very specific sound it sounds like a small explosion I was blindfolded the whole time but I would try to see somehow All you see is blood your own blood the blood of others After one hit you lose your sense of what is happening You re in shock But then the pain comes 28 Another former detainee is Samer al Ahmed who on a regular basis was forced to squeeze his head through the small hatch near the bottom of his cell door It was then straightened out by the prison guards when they with all their weight jumped on his head This required that al Ahmed s head was pressed against the edge of the hatch The guards would continue the torture until blood started flowing across the floor 29 Torture methods in Sednaya varied One common interrogation technique called shabeh was described by one of the witnesses They had me stand on the barrel and they tied the rope around my wrists Then they took away the barrel There was nothing below my feet They were dangling in the air They brought three sticks They were hitting me everywhere After they were done beating me with the wooden sticks they took the cigarettes They were putting them out all over my body It felt like a knife excavating my body cutting me apart 30 Other methods of torture consisted of leaving people in stress positions while beating them or torturing them with electricity 30 Describing the nature of the ongoing torture in the prison the Amnesty report states In Saydnaya torture is not used to force a detainee to confess as it is in branches of the security forces but instead as a method of punishment and degradation The most common form of torture used at Saydnaya is regular and brutal beatings Detainees told Amnesty International that the beatings they endured were sometimes so severe that they caused life long damage and disability or death Former detainees told Amnesty International that they were also subjected to sexual violence at Saydnaya including rape According to former detainee Hassan They were making people take their clothes off and touch each other in sensitive places and rape each other too I went through this only one time but I heard about it happening so much 31 The detainees were also deprived of food and water and had been raped and forced to rape each other 32 One of the testifications states They beat me until I was lying on the ground and then they kicked me with their military boots in the places where I have had my hip operations until I passed out When I woke up I was back in the solitary cell they had dragged me back there from that room but my trousers had been opened and moved down a bit my abaya full length robe was open and my undershirt was moved up Everything was hurting so I couldn t tell if I had been raped It was overwhelming pain everywhere 30 When they did get food it was often mixed with blood 21 Amnesty International has managed to confirm the names of 375 individuals executed in Sednaya prison 33 and while the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch suggests that tens of thousands of detainees have died in Sednaya and other government run detention centers since 2011 as a result of the extermination policies 33 Amnesty International itself calculates the number of deaths to between 5 000 and 13 000 30 The Syrian Justice Ministry denied the report issued by Amnesty International describing it as devoid of truth and considering it to be a part of a smear campaign targeted against Syrian government The Syrian Justice Ministry holds a view that motivation for the allegations to smear the Syrian government s international reputation come from recent military victories against terrorist groups 34 35 After the 2011 uprisings editAfter months of anti government protests in 2011 many prisoners including secular and Islamist detainees were released in several amnesties 36 Zahran Alloush Abu Shadi Aboud brother of Hassan Aboud 37 and Ahmed Abu Issa were some of the more prominent prisoners released from the prison After their release many took up arms against the regime and became leaders of Islamist rebel groups including Jaysh al Islam Ahrar ash Sham and Suqour al Sham Brigade in the Syrian Civil War There have repeatedly been reports on inhumane conditions for detainees in Sednaya as well as other Syrian prisons ranging from torture and malnutrition to spontaneous executions without fair trials 1 38 39 40 Seventy five per cent of people who go into Sednaya do not come out alive It is a field court where most judges are from the secret police A Syrian lawyer working with prisoners in Hama 1 Amnesty s reconstruction of Sednaya Prison editThe lack of accessibility to reports from journalists and monitoring groups have made reliable information about the prison very difficult to find The only available sources on the incidents inside the Sednaya prison derive from the memories of former detainees In April 2016 Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture traveled to Turkey to meet five Sednaya survivors The researchers used architectural and acoustic modeling to reconstruct the prison and the survivors experiences at detention As there are no images of the prison and because the prisoners were held in darkness under strictly enforced silence researchers had to depend entirely on their memories and acute experience of sound footsteps door opening and locking and water dripping in the pipes among other things The fact that prisoners rarely saw daylight they were consequently forced to develop an acute relation to sound Having to cover their eyes with their hands whenever a guard entered the room made them become attuned to the smallest sounds In a video interview a former Sednaya detainee says You try to build an image based on the sounds you hear You know the person by the sound of his footsteps You can tell the food times by the sound of the bowl If you hear screaming you know newcomers have arrived When there is no screaming we know they are accustomed to Sednaya 41 Sound became the instrument by which inmates navigated and measured their environment Therefore sound also became one of the essential tools with which the prison could be digitally reconstructed The sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan used a technique of echo profiling which made it possible for him to decide the size of cells stairwells and corridors He played different sound reflections and asked former inmates to match these tones of different decibel levels to the levels of specific incidents inside the prison Based on these testimonies and with the help of an architect working with 3D modeling software Amnesty and Forensic Architecture have constructed a model on the entire prison As they remembered the witnesses added objects like torture tools blankets furniture and areas where they recalled them being used In Sednaya the architecture of the prison emerges not only as a location of torture but itself as an instrument in its perpetration Forensic Architecture s project on Sednaya is part of a larger campaign run by Amnesty International The project aims to pressure the Syrian government to allow independent monitors into the detention centres Amnesty urged Russia and the United States to use their power to admit independent monitors to investigate conditions in Syria s torture prisons 42 43 41 The 2017 Amnesty Report concludes Saydnaya Military Prison is a human slaughterhouse The bodies of Saydnaya s victims are taken away by the truckload Many are hanged secretly in the middle of the night Others die as a result of torture and many are killed slowly through the systematic deprivation of food water medicine and medical care It is inconceivable that this is not authorized by the highest levels of the Syrian political leadership 44 Crematorium accusations editOn May 15 2017 the United States Department of State accused the Syrian government of engaging in mass executions at the prison and burning the bodies of the executed in a crematorium built in Sednaya Prison in an effort to conceal the killings 45 46 According to the State Department a crematorium was constructed with the purpose of hiding the evidence of the thousands murdered at the prison 47 The State Department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium The photographs taken over the course of several years beginning in 2013 do not prove the building is a crematorium but show construction consistent with such use 45 Evidence suggesting crematorium use includes 2015 photographs showing all buildings at the complex covered in rooftop snowmelt except for a single building suggesting a significant internal heat source as well as a discharge stack a likely firewall and a likely air intake 47 46 The State Department in a later press briefing agreed that snowmelt on the roof presented as one of the pieces of evidence consistent with a crematorium could possibly just indicate it is a warmer part of a building 48 Acting assistant secretary of state for the Middle East Stuart E Jones stated that as many as 50 prisoners a day were killed in mass hangings 47 45 Jones stated Although the regime s many atrocities are well documented we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Sednaya prison 46 Amnesty International who had interviewed former guards and inmates of the prison have remarked that none of them have told them about the existence of the crematorium According to other escapees of the prison the bodies were buried outside of the compound 49 Former inmates editZahran Alloush former leader of Jaysh al Islam 50 Hassan Aboud former leader of Ahrar ash Sham Abu Yahia al Hamawi former leader of Ahrar ash Sham Abu Jaber Shaykh senior leader of Tahrir al Sham Ahmed Abu Issa leader of Suqour al Sham Brigade Abu Mohammad al Adnani former leader and spokesperson of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIL Abu Luqman former ISIL governor of Raqqah Haitham al Maleh human rights activist and lawyer 51 Jihad Qassab former footballer who was executed on 30 September 2016 52 Hassan Soufan former leader of Ahrar al Sham from 2017 to 2018 and the general commander of the Syrian Liberation Front Omar Alshogre Director of Detainee Issues at Syrian Emergency Task ForceReferences edit a b c Broomfield Matt 2016 05 05 Prisoners riot over claims President Assad is about to start torturing and executing them The Independent Retrieved 2017 05 15 Washington Post December 2018 syria bodies Torture victims Civilian from Daraa dies in Sednaya prison 9 January 2021 Retrieved 11 January 2021 Editorial Board February 11 2017 A human slaughterhouse in Syria The Washington Post Houry Nadim 16 December 2015 If the Dead Could Speak Human Rights Watch Retrieved 11 July 2017 Former Detainee Describes Atrocities Inside Syrian Prison www wbur org Retrieved 11 July 2017 End the Horror in Syria s Prisons Amnesty International 2016 Archived from the original on 9 September 2016 a b c Saydnaya Inside a Syrian Torture Prison Amnesty International 2016 08 16 Retrieved 2017 05 15 1 Amnesty Detention in Syria 2017 Robins Early Nick 2017 02 07 Syria Killed Thousands In Secret Mass Hangings Inside Prison Amnesty Reports Huffington Post Retrieved 2017 05 15 2 Amnesty Public statement 2005 Human Rights Watch Far from justice Syria s Supreme State Security Court 2009 p 49 3 Amnesty International Report 2009 Syria 4 The Syrian Human Rights Committee Amnesty International Annual Report on Syria Covering events from January December 2002 2004 a b 5 Human Rights Watch Syria Investigate Sednaya Prison Deaths 2008 a b 6 The Syrian Human Rights Committee Sednaya Prison Massacre 2009 a b c 7 Al Jazeera The Black Box The Death in Sednaya 2015 a b c 8 Zaman Alwasl Sednaya Death speaks 2013 9 Oreint News The Road to Sednaya We have Changed Omar Abdullah 2015 10 BBC Arabic Damascus Extremists Behind Sednaya Prison s riot 2008 a b 11 Al Jazeera How I m Still Alive Surviving Assad s Prison Cells 2017 12 Middle East Eye Former detainees recount torture organ harvesting Syria s prisons 2016 13 ABC News Mass deaths in Syrian jails amount to crime of extermination 2016 14 The Guardian A Report into the credibility of certain evidence with regard to Torture and Execution of Persons Incarcerated by the current Syrian regime 2011 15 The Guardian A Report into the credibility of certain evidence with regard to Torture and Execution of Persons Incarcerated by the current Syrian regime 2011 16 Human Rights Watch Mass deaths and torture 2015 17 Amnesty report Syria Human slaughterhouse mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison Syria 2017 18 Amnesty report Syria Human slaughterhouse mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison Syria 2017 p 32 19 The Guardian The worst place on earth inside Assad s brutal Saydnaya prison 2016 a b c d 20 Amnesty report Syria Human slaughterhouse mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison Syria 2017 p 6 Human Slaughterhouse Mass Hangings and Extermination at Sednaya Prison Syria PDF Peter Benenson House 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW UK Amnesty International 2017 p 11 Archived from the original PDF on 5 December 2021 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location link 21 Amnesty report Syria Human slaughterhouse mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison Syria 2017 p 33 a b 22 Amnesty report Syria Human slaughterhouse mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya Prison Syria 2017 p 40 23 Reuters Amnesty says Syria executes tortures thousands at prison government denies 2017 Assad government responds to compelling evidence 13 000 killed in one prison Independent co uk 8 February 2017 Retrieved 15 May 2017 Abouzeid Rania 23 June 2014 The Jihad Next Door Politico Retrieved 13 January 2015 Behind the Black Flag The Recruitment of an ISIS Killer The New York Times 21 December 2015 Thousands of Inmates Killed in Sednaya Prison from Torture Disease Malnutrition Former Prisoner The Syrian Observer 2015 Ex detainee tells about horror of Sednaya Prison 285 Security Branch Zaman al Wasl 2016 If the Dead Could Speak Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria s Detention Facilities Human Rights Watch 2015 a b 24 The Guardian The worst place on earth inside Assad s brutal Saydnaya prison 2016 25 Amnesty International Explore Saydnaya 2017 26 Forensic Architecture Case Saydnaya 2017 Human Slaughterhouse Mass Hangings and Extermination at Sednaya Prison Syria PDF Peter Benenson House 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW UK Amnesty International 2017 p 11 Archived from the original PDF on 5 December 2021 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location link a b c Matthew Lee amp Vivian Salama May 15 2017 US Syria is burning bodies to hide proof of mass killings Associated Press a b c Harris Gardiner May 15 2017 Syrian Crematory Is Hiding Mass Killings of Prisoners U S Says The New York Times a b c DeYoung Karen May 15 2017 U S says Syria built crematorium to handle mass prisoner killings The Washington Post Retrieved October 26 2017 Briefing by Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones on Syria Retrieved 11 July 2017 Sydow Christoph 16 May 2017 Syrien USA bleiben Beweise fur Assads Leichenofen in Sednaja schuldig Der Spiegel Aron Lund 17 June 2013 Freedom fighters Cannibals The truth about Syria s rebels The Independent Retrieved 7 November 2013 هيثم المالح Al Jazeera 2011 03 10 Retrieved 8 December 2016 Ex captain of national football team barbarically tortured to death in Syrian regime prison Mirror 6 October 2016 Retrieved 7 December 2017 Notes edit Sources Human Slaughterhouse Mass Hangings and Extermination at Sednaya Prison Syria PDF Peter Benenson House 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW UK Amnesty International 2017 p 11 Archived from the original PDF on 5 December 2021 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location link al Jablawi Hosam 13 July 2017 Horrifying Testimony on Syria s Human Slaughterhouse Saydnaya Prison Atlantic Council Archived from the original on 20 July 2017 A human slaughterhouse in Syria The Washington Post 11 February 2017 Archived from the original on 14 February 2017 The Human Slaughterhouse Annecy Festival Archived from the original on 25 March 2023 External links edit Revelations sur le massacre de la prison de Saydnaya Courrier international in French 22 September 2011 Retrieved 2015 10 20 Syria Investigate Sednaya Prison Deaths Human Rights Watch 21 July 2008 Retrieved 2015 10 20 Saydnaya Inside a Syrian torture prison Amnesty International Retrieved 2016 08 24 Inside Saydnaya Syria s Torture Prison Amnesty International at YouTube August 18 2016 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Sednaya Prison amp oldid 1217098067, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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