Published : 29-12-2019
The Syrian Commission for Releasing Detainees said the Syrian government continues to carry out arbitrary executions based on illicit court verdicts.
Head of the commission, lawyer Fahd Moussa, told AlQuds AlArabi that recently the Syrian government authorities ruled for transferring detainees from prisons in Adraa (Damascus), Latakia, and AlSuweida to Sednaya military prison, in a presumable attempt to carry out secret executions.
In its first report, entitled “Sednaya Prison: Factory of death and enforced disappearance in Syria”, the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP) said that inmates have been tortured to death in the highly-secretive penal complex.
The report, released in Gaziantep in Turkey on Tuesday (November 12), monitors the procedures and consequences of detention in Sednaya Prison in Syria, which the Assad regime continues to use as a main centre for the detention and enforced disappearance of political detainees, denying them any contact with the outside world and subjecting them to poor conditions that often lead to death.
The report devotes a whole chapter to the trials of detainees in Sednaya prison. It illustrates the Assad regime’s resort to the Military Field Court after 2011 and shows how the number of Sednaya detainees increased dramatically from 24.3% before 2011 to 87.6% after 2011. The military field court lacks the minimum requirements of a fair trial as the detainee is not allowed to have access to a lawyer or any contact with the outside world.
The ADMSP identified 24 types of psychological torture which included mock executions, being forced to watch other inmates being tortured, and threats against prisoners' families. Every former prisoner interviewed reported to have been beaten with sticks of batons in Sednaya, with 20 forms of torture identified, often resulting in the death of the inmates.
Almost all reported being whipped or beaten while trapped inside a tire, with other forms of torture including being suspended from the arms, electrocution, and the "German chair", which sees inmates tied around a chair with pressure applied.
Sexual abuse has also significantly increased under the Assad regime, with around a third of detainees admitted to have suffered from this form of torture at Sednaya.
The group said that few inmates expect to emerge from Syria's Sednaya prison alive, a place where routine torture and inhumane living conditions are, obviously, all designed to break the hope and dignity of prisoners, according to human rights groups.
The Syrian Commission for Releasing Detainees said the Syrian government continues to carry out arbitrary executions based on illicit court verdicts.
Head of the commission, lawyer Fahd Moussa, told AlQuds AlArabi that recently the Syrian government authorities ruled for transferring detainees from prisons in Adraa (Damascus), Latakia, and AlSuweida to Sednaya military prison, in a presumable attempt to carry out secret executions.
In its first report, entitled “Sednaya Prison: Factory of death and enforced disappearance in Syria”, the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP) said that inmates have been tortured to death in the highly-secretive penal complex.
The report, released in Gaziantep in Turkey on Tuesday (November 12), monitors the procedures and consequences of detention in Sednaya Prison in Syria, which the Assad regime continues to use as a main centre for the detention and enforced disappearance of political detainees, denying them any contact with the outside world and subjecting them to poor conditions that often lead to death.
The report devotes a whole chapter to the trials of detainees in Sednaya prison. It illustrates the Assad regime’s resort to the Military Field Court after 2011 and shows how the number of Sednaya detainees increased dramatically from 24.3% before 2011 to 87.6% after 2011. The military field court lacks the minimum requirements of a fair trial as the detainee is not allowed to have access to a lawyer or any contact with the outside world.
The ADMSP identified 24 types of psychological torture which included mock executions, being forced to watch other inmates being tortured, and threats against prisoners' families. Every former prisoner interviewed reported to have been beaten with sticks of batons in Sednaya, with 20 forms of torture identified, often resulting in the death of the inmates.
Almost all reported being whipped or beaten while trapped inside a tire, with other forms of torture including being suspended from the arms, electrocution, and the "German chair", which sees inmates tied around a chair with pressure applied.
Sexual abuse has also significantly increased under the Assad regime, with around a third of detainees admitted to have suffered from this form of torture at Sednaya.
The group said that few inmates expect to emerge from Syria's Sednaya prison alive, a place where routine torture and inhumane living conditions are, obviously, all designed to break the hope and dignity of prisoners, according to human rights groups.
