Human Rights Watch brings to light the brutality the Syrian regime seeks to practice in the darkness of its dungeons:
Syrian security and intelligence services have arbitrarily detained hundreds of protesters across the country, subjecting them to torture and ill-treatment, since anti-government demonstrations began in mid-March 2011, Human Rights Watch said today. The security and intelligence services, commonly referred to as mukhabarat, have also arrested lawyers, activists, and journalists who endorsed or promoted the protests, Human Rights Watch said.
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"There can be no real reforms in Syria while security forces abuse people with impunity," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. ...
Human Rights Watch interviewed 19 people who had been detained in Daraa, Damascus, Douma, al-Tal, Homs, and Banyas, as well as several families of detainees. Those interviewed who had been detained included two women and three teenagers, ages 16 and 17. Human Rights Watch also collected information from Syrian activists about dozens of people detained in Daraa and Banyas, and reviewed the footage of some detainees released from Daraa, whose bodies appeared to have marks from torture. Those interviewed were held by various branches of mukhabarat, including state security (Amn al-Dawla), political security (Amn al-Siyasi), and military security (Amn al-Askari).
... In addition to the three children interviewed by Human Rights Watch, witnesses reported seeing children detained and beaten in the facilities where they were held.
Many told Human Rights Watch that they and other detainees were subjected to other forms of torture, including electro-shock devices, cables, and whips. Most also said they were held in overcrowded cells, and many were deprived of sleep, food, and water - in some cases, for several days. Some said they were blindfolded and handcuffed the entire time.
Most detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported being forced to sign confessions without being allowed to read them, as well as pledges not to participate in future protests. Some also had to provide detailed personal information about themselves and their families, including family members' addresses and places of employment. None were allowed to have any contact with relatives or lawyers while in detention, and their families were not informed of their whereabouts.
... The number of people who remain in detention is impossible to verify, but several individuals told Human Rights Watch that a number of people from their communities who had been arrested during the protests had not returned and that their families had no information about their fate or whereabouts.
Beatings, Torture in Detention
Many of those interviewed shortly after their release still had traces of bruises on their faces and heads. One, a 17-year-old, could hardly move - he needed assistance sitting down and standing up. Human Rights Watch reviewed video footage showing evidence of severe beatings on the face and arms of another child, described in the footage as a 12-year-old from Douma, a town near Damascus.
A protester detained on March 25 ... said the security services beat him and put him in a bus with five or six other detainees and drove them to Damascus. He said he was first taken to the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence and later to a branch of State Security on Baghdad Street:
[At State Security,] they lined us up in the corridor along the wall, and beat us. Then they dragged us to the basement - I lost consciousness for some time, they beat me very hard on my head. They first kept all 17 of us in one room, and took [us] out for interrogations from there - they beat us with a cable, and accused us of being Israeli and Lebanese spies. I was hooded at the time.
Another protester arrested during the same protest told Human Rights Watch that he was brutally beaten and tortured by three mukhabarat agencies: State Security, Political Security, and the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence. He described his ill-treatment at the hands of Political Security, where he spent four days:
The security personnel took us out for interrogations in a room in front of the cell. We constantly heard the sounds of whipping and screams from that room. When they took me in, they put me face down on the floor, and started beating me with a cable on the soles of my feet, my legs and back. They were asking, "Why did you go to the demonstration? Who paid you to go? Who made you go?" They just wanted me to confess to something, did not matter what.
Another protester from al-Tal also reported that officers of the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence used electric shock to torture him and others detained with him:
They beat us in the courtyard, and then took us into the basement. It was a big room, with about a hundred detainees in it, from different towns. They stripped us down to our underwear and poured cold water on us, beat us with cables, and shocked us with electric batons - those were cylindrical sticks that looked like a torch, they pressed them toward our arms and stomachs, each time for three to four seconds. The low-ranking soldiers did the beatings, and higher officers used the electro-shock devices. They were in uniforms, but without identifying signs.
A lawyer detained by State Security in Damascus told Human Rights Watch that he shared a cell with two detainees who were tortured with electro-shock devices, and another whose legs and feet were beaten so badly that he could not move. After one interrogation session, security personnel brought him back to the cell, hung him by his hands, and prohibited his cellmates from giving him food or water, or even talking to him. One detainee recalled a cellmate who had been beaten so badly on the soles of his feet that his toenails had fallen out. Another detained in a State Security facility in Damascus estimated that he heard approximately 30 people being beaten one Friday night after the security forces had brought in a new batch of protesters....A 17-year-old detained in the coastal town of Banyas described his ordeal during his five-day detention at a local branch of Military Security:
... They kept us there with no food from Friday, when they arrested us, until Monday. ... I couldn't see anything. They beat me on my head, on my back, on my shoulders. They especially beat me on my face. With every word, they would beat me. ...
Two witnesses who were detained in a facility on Baghdad Street in Damascus reported hearing a woman scream as if in pain and cry in their facility, but they never saw her.
Forced Confessions
Most of those detained following protests told Human Rights Watch that they were forced to sign and put their fingerprints on papers without being allowed to read the document. A teenager from Douma detained for two days by the mukhabarat - he was blindfolded and so did not know which security branch - told Human Rights Watch:
I asked, "What is this paper?" and one of the security men grabbed my head, and pushed my mouth open, and the other one squeezed my tongue with something that felt like pliers and started pulling it. And when I refused to sign it, one of the interrogators took a hammer and started pounding on my toes. In the cell, they also beat me on the face with their Kalashnikovs [AK-47 assault rifles]....Activists and Journalists
Syria's security services have also arbitrarily arrested and tortured activists, writers, and journalists who have reported on or expressed support for the anti-government protests, detaining at least seven local and international journalists since protests began on March 16....State Security also arrested one of the lawyers who represented the protesters detained at the March 16 demonstration calling for the release of political activists. He spent a week at the State Security detention facility in Damascus, where the security personnel on several occasions beat, threatened, and humiliated him. He spent most of his time handcuffed and hooded. ... The lawyer said that throughout his detention he heard sounds of beatings and screams of other detainees.
"By silencing those who write about events, Syrian authorities hope to hide their brutality," Stork said. "But their crackdown on journalists and activists only highlights their criminal behavior."
Detention Conditions
... One person detained at State Security in Damascus said he shared a 30-square meter cell with about 75 other people.
Several told Human Rights Watch that they were put in small solitary confinement cells about 1 by 1.5 meters - too small even to lie down. Officers sometimes forced two or even three detainees into these cells. One person detained in Damascus said that he shared a cell that was about half a meter by 1.75 meters with another person for four days. "When we slept we had to coordinate our movements to turn," he said. Another protester detained at a State Security facility on Bagdad Street in Damascus said that he shared a cell about three-quarters of a meter by 1.8 meters with two other men...."Throwing peaceful protesters in dungeons, beating them, denying them access to the outside world, will only increase the chasm between Syria's rulers and its people," Stork said. "The terrible torture methods of the mukhabarat need to become a relic of the past."
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