The first place Syrians turned to after the fall of their longtime tormentor, former president Bashar al-Assad, was the network of hidden dungeons and torture chambers, uncovering the dark secrets of what transpired behind the concrete walls of Damascus’s security compound.
Within the defense ministry’s secured compound, various intelligence agencies, each tasked with monitoring ordinary Syrian civilians, ran their own underground prisons and interrogation chambers behind the fortified walls.
The Syrian population lived in constant anxiety about being called for interrogation, uncertain if they would ever return home.
Rebel fighters now control access points to the restricted area in the capital’s Kafr Sousa neighbourhood, where security services maintained their central operations alongside administrative offices.
‘Terrorism was a common charge’
According to news agency AFP, the first responder Sleiman Kahwaji exploring the facility, attempting to identify the building where he faced questioning and detention recounted being arrested whilst still attending secondary school in 2014, accused of “terrorism.”
“Terrorism” was a common charge during the reign of the now-deposed president Assad, who suppressed all opposition . “I spent 55 days underground,” he said.
“There were 55 of us in that dungeon. Two died, one from diabetes,” he added.
Isolation cells so small, alternate sleeping
The prisoners’ scribbled graffitis remain faintly visible on the dark walls. “My dear mother,” one had scribbled, probably in his own blood. The isolation cells are constructed so small that lying down is impossible.
Former prisoner Thaer Mustafa, detained for alleged desertion, remembers larger cells holding up to 80 inmates, who had to alternate sleeping times.
Earlier on Sunday, all remaining detainees gained their freedom after their captors abandoned their posts as rebels advanced into Damascus, culminating in the swift offensive initiated in the previous month.
Saydnaya prison: “The slaughterhouse”
Many visit after checking Saydnaya Prison, an extensive detention facility outside Damascus infamous for its brutality and long known as “the slaughterhouse.” Survivors of interrogation were often held there for extended periods.
According to Amnesty International, Saydnaya once housed up to 20,000 prisoners. Former detainees recounted harrowing accounts of numerous executions and deaths due to neglect, where guards enforced strict silence, and prisoners rested on blood- and sweat-soaked stone floors under insect-infested covers.
ADMSP’s 2022 report described Saydnaya as a “death camp” post-2011, estimating over 30,000 deaths from executions, torture, medical neglect and starvation between 2011-2018, with at least 500 more executions through 2021. The regime denied these claims, maintaining proper legal procedures.
‘I’m looking for my son but I didn’t find him’
Since Saturday, families have been gathering at the Damascus security zone entrance, desperately seeking information about their missing relatives. The facility near Damascus transformed from a place of silence to one filled with voices of families searching for their missing relatives.
“We heard that there were secret dungeons. I’m looking for my son Obada Amini, who was arrested in 2013,” said Khouloud Amini, accompanied by her husband and daughter.
“He was in his fourth year at the engineering faculty, I went to Saydnaya but I didn’t find him. I was told there were underground dungeons here. I hope that all Syrian prisoners are freed,” she added.
Security services maintained records of everything citizen
- Crowds stormed the security zone, making their way to the upper levels of the complex and looting the offices.
- Numerous intelligence documents were left behind, with many strewn across the floor, revealing detailed surveillance records of ordinary citizens by security service operatives.
- The security services documented each prisoner’s personal information, including name, birth date, detention circumstances, interrogation details and mortality status.
- The security services maintained records of everything, from ordinary citizens’ activities to those of journalists and religious figures.
- Even cabinet ministers weren’t exempt. A government member list includes security agent notations about each minister’s religious affiliation – Sunni, Alawite, Christian or Druze.
- The security apparatus maintained extensive networks of compensated informants who provided detailed reports about people’s everyday activities.
Muslim Brotherhood affiliation
A handwritten record contains details of over 10,000 inmates held under suspicion of Muslim Brotherhood affiliation. The Assad family, belonging to Syria’s Alawite minority who practise a branch of Shiite Islam, considered the Sunni Islamist organisation as absolutely unacceptable.
Brotherhood membership has been punishable by death since 1980, two years before Hafez al-Assad, father and predecessor of Bashar al-Assad, ordered a military assault on the city of Hama to crush an insurgency, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 people.
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