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In Syria, Rebels Liberate Saydnaya Prison from Assad's Sadistic Grip

(The Times-UK) Samer al-Atrush - Saydnaya prison, north of Damascus, was where thousands of regime opponents had been locked up, tortured and killed from the earliest days of the 2011 uprising. Rebels entered the control room where screens showed feeds from surveillance cameras. Footage showed them breaking down cell doors and telling bewildered prisoners they were free. From one cell, a blinking toddler emerged. He appeared to have been born in captivity. Old women and young girls streamed out, some of them weeping, others looking dazed. Some screamed in fear, suspecting that their moment had come to be led away for execution or torture. "Everyone to her home now," ordered one rebel commander. "Bashir al-Assad is gone," another explained. "You are free now, everyone go home." There seemed no end to the prisoners walking out. Some held up fingers to show how long they had been imprisoned, others shouted the years. From the male wing, a group of freed prisoners explained that this was the day they had been slated for execution. In 2021, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 100,000 people had been executed or killed in Assad's prison network in the first ten years of the uprising. Of those, 30,000 perished in Saydnaya.
2024-12-10 00:00:00
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