Prisons thrown open across Syria

9/12/2024 6:13

Bewildered and elated prisoners poured

out of Syrian jails on Sunday, shouting with joy as they emerged

from one of the world's most notorious detention systems and

walked to freedom following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's

government.



All across Syria, families wept as they were reunited with

children, siblings, spouses and parents who vanished years ago

into the impregnable gulag of the Assad dynasty's five-decade

rule.



A video verified by Reuters showed newly freed prisoners ran

through the Damascus streets, holding up the fingers of both

hands to show how many years they had been in prison, asking

passers-by what had happened, not immediately understanding that

Assad had fallen.



"We toppled the regime!" a voice shouted and a prisoner

yelled and skipped with delight in the same video. A man

watching the prisoners rush through the dawn streets put his

hands to head, exclaiming with wonder: "Oh my god, the

prisoners!"



Throughout the civil war that began in 2011, security forces

held hundreds of thousands of people seized into detention camps

where international human rights organisations say torture was

universal practice. Families were often told nothing of the fate

of their loved ones.



As insurgents seized one city after another in a dizzying

eight-day campaign, prisons were often among their first

objectives. The most notorious prisons in and around Damascus

itself were finally opened on the uprising's final night and the

early hours of Sunday.



When they reached Sednaya prison, rebels shot the lock off

the gate, a video showed, using more gunfire to open closed

doors leading to cells. Men poured out into corridors and a

courtyard, cheering and helping them open more cells.



In a video uploaded by Step News Agency, a grey-haired man

leapt into the arms of relatives in a sudden, disbelieving hug,

the three men clasping each other and sobbing with joy before

one fell to his knees, still clutching the freed man's legs.



The pan-Arab Arabiya news channel showed a family arriving

in Damascus by car from Jordan to meet their newly released son,

the elderly mother's voice breaking with emotion as she told the

interviewer he had been freed after 14 years.



Reuters was not immediately able to verify the locations of

some of the videos, though no one disputed that prisons were

opened across the country.







RELIEF AND TERROR



In what was purported to be the women's block at Sednaya

prison on the Damascus outskirts, perhaps the most notorious in

the country, a rebel recorded the moment he reached cells and

pulled open the doors for prisoners who seemed to have had

little idea they were about to be freed.



"May God honour you!" a woman shouted to the men freeing

her. As they left their cells a toddler could be seen walking

the corridor, having apparently been held in the prison along

with his mother.



"He (Assad) has fallen. Don't be scared," a voice shouts,

trying to reassure the prisoners that they faced no more danger.



In another video, a deafening roar erupted as rebels marched

down a corridor, said to be in the prison at Mezzeh air base

southwest of the old centre of Damascus. Prisoners leaned

through the bars at the top of doors and banged on the sides of

their cells as shouts of joy echoed all around.



One video showed a shaven-headed man squatting on his heels,

trembling and barely able to answer the rebels asking his name

and where he was from.



Over the years, thousands of Syrians were brusquely informed

by authorities that their relatives had been executed, sometimes

years earlier.



The United States said in 2017 it had evidence of a new

crematorium built at Sednaya especially to dispose of bodies of

thousands of inmates hanged during the war.



Some of the most disturbing information about Assad's prison

system came with thousands of photographs smuggled out of Syria

by a military photographer codenamed Caesar who defected to the

West in 2013.



His photographs of thousands of killed detainees showed

clear marks of torture and starvation and for many families

provided the first evidence that imprisoned relatives were dead.



A few miles from Sednaya early on Sunday, a stream of freed

prisoners was recorded walking towards Damascus, many lugging

sacks of belongings on their backs, and chanting "God is great!"