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DAMASCUS, Syria — As Abdullah Zahra sat handcuffed and hunched on the floor, he witnessed smoke spiraling up from his cellmate’s body during a brutal electric shock torture session administered by his captors. Shortly after, it was his turn to endure the same fate. The 20-year-old university scholar was suspended from his wrists, barely able to touch the ground, as he was electrocuted and beaten for two agonizing hours. His father was forced to watch, subject to humiliating taunts about his son’s suffering. This harrowing event took place in 2012, at a time when the full extent of the Syrian security apparatus was deployed to quell growing protests against then-President Bashar Assad.
In light of Assad’s recent removal from power, the extensive web of torture and repression he orchestrated is beginning to surface. Activists, human rights organizations, and former prisoners report that the regime operated more than 100 detention facilities where torture, sexual abuse, and mass executions were routine. The security forces showed no mercy, even to Assad’s own military personnel; individuals faced detention merely for residing in protest-afflicted neighborhoods.
As tens of thousands vanished over the past decade, a suffocating atmosphere of fear silenced many Syrians. People were often reluctant to speak of their missing loved ones, fearing repercussions from the very security services that had already taken their relatives. However, with the regime’s crumbling grip, conversations have emerged. Rebels who toppled Assad’s regime have now reopened detention sites, liberating prisoners and enabling the public to seek out information and closure about their missing family members.
The situation led to the AP’s visit to seven of these facilities in Damascus and interviews with nine former detainees, some of whom were freed on December 8, the day of Assad’s ousting. While some aspects of these accounts cannot be independently verified, they resonate with prior testimonies documented by various human rights organizations.
Days following Assad’s departure, 33-year-old Zahra revisited Branch 215, the military intelligence facility where he had spent two months. Upon entering the dark, cramped cell measuring roughly 4 by 4 meters, which housed about 100 men, he recalled the inhumane conditions. Each detainee was permitted to occupy only a single floor tile for sitting. When the ventilation system failed, either purposely or from power outages, many suffocated, while the mental strain caused some to lose their grip on reality. The bodies of deceased inmates were left next to filthy toilets until prison guards eventually collected them.
“Death was the least bad thing,” Zahra recounted. “It reached a point where death felt easier than enduring one more minute in that place.”
As civil conflict escalated, Assad’s repressive machinery intensified. Zahra and his father were initially arrested after security agents killed one of his brothers, a known anti-government graffiti artist. Following their release, Zahra escaped to areas held by the opposition, but soon after, authorities apprehended 13 of his male relatives, including his younger brother and father. They were taken to Branch 215, where they met the same tragic fate—tortured and murdered.
The bodies of Zahra’s relatives were later identified among thousands documented in leaked photographs of detainees who perished under custody. Human rights organizations estimate that at least 150,000 individuals went missing following the start of anti-government protests in 2011, with many succumbing either to torture or in mass executions. The true magnitude of this tragedy remains unknown.
Even prior to the uprising, the Assad regime ruled with an iron fist, but it aggressively expanded its repressive tactics as peaceful protests escalated into a 14-year civil war. New detention centers emerged across military installations and security compounds, all operated by various state security agencies.
During his visit to the site of his torture, Zahra searched for any traces of his lost kin but found none. Meanwhile, back at home, his aunt Rajaa viewed pictures of her deceased sons for the first time, having avoided looking at leaked images until now. Out of six sons, three were lost in Branch 215, while a fourth was killed during protests. Her brother, previously a father of three, now has only one living son. “They aimed to extinguish all the young men in the country,” she lamented.
The tortures employed had specific names, one of which was dubbed “the magic carpet,” in which a detainee was strapped to a hinged plank that folded them in half, exposing them to severe beatings. Abdul-Karim Hajeko recounted enduring this torture five times, which left him with crushed vertebrae.
“My screams could reach heaven,” he recalled, describing how a doctor once rushed down from another floor due to the intensity of his cries. He also faced “the tire” torture, wherein his legs were bent within a car tire while interrogators lashed his back and feet; upon completion, a guard demanded he kiss the tire and express gratitude for the lesson on “proper behavior.” Hajeko later spent six years at Saydnaya Prison.
Numerous detainees reported being subjected to the tire as punishment for minor infractions, such as making noise or praying. Non-commissioned air force officer Mahmoud Abdulbaki shared his experience of counting lashes while confined within the tire, only to have torture resumed if he lost track.
“People’s hearts would stop after a beating,” said Abdulbaki, who endured nearly six years of imprisonment before being liberated on the day Assad left Syria. Saleh Turki Yahia described how a fellow inmate died nearly every day during a seven-month stint at Palestine Branch in 2012, recounting the heartbreaking experience of a man who bled out after a torture session.
“They broke us,” Yahia lamented through tears. “Just look at Syria; it’s all old men… A whole generation has been destroyed.” Yet with Assad now gone, he felt compelled to return to Palestine Branch to speak out. “I came to express myself. I want to tell.”
As the evidence of torture and abuse mounts, many hope it will contribute to prosecutions against Assad’s officials, whether in Syrian or international courts. Hundreds of thousands of documents, many marked as classified, remain scattered throughout former detention centers. Some documents reviewed contained intelligence records, transcripts, and lists detailing prisoners who died while incarcerated.
Shadi Haroun, who spent a decade in prison, is now documenting the regime’s prison hierarchy and the experiences of former prisoners from his new home in Turkey. After Assad’s fall, he returned to Syria to survey detention facilities. He noted that the records illustrate the systematic nature behind the killings. “They are organized; they know exactly what they are doing,” he said.
Civil defense volunteers are currently working to uncover mass graves where tens of thousands are believed to be resting. Reports indicate at least 10 such sites have been identified around Damascus, based largely on local resident accounts, with five additional sites located elsewhere in the country. Authorities have not yet commenced the process of exhumation.
A U.N. mechanism known as the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism has offered to assist Syria’s new interim government in gathering and analyzing evidence. Since 2011, it has compiled substantial evidence and supported criminal investigations against numerous figures in Assad’s administration. Robert Petit, directing the U.N. body, states that the scale of the task is so significant that it cannot be managed by a single entity. The priority lies in identifying those responsible for the violence.
Amidst this push for justice, many individuals desire immediate answers. Wafaa Mustafa, a Syrian journalist whose father died under detention 12 years ago, puts forth that officials cannot simply announce the presumed deaths of the missing. “Families deserve to know what happened. No one gets to give them a narrative without evidence, without searching for the truth,” she asserted.
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