NADIA AL-BUKAI Just before we begin, I wanted to let you know that this podcast contains some descriptions of physical, psychological, and sexual violence. Please use discretion.
In English, the word "injustice" means the lack of fairness or justice. But in Arabic, the word is a bit different. In Arabic, the word for "injustice" is "zulm." As opposed to English, the origin of the word itself in Arabic has nothing to do with justice, rights, or even law. Zulm or injustice shares the same origin as the word with "zalam," which means darkness. Arabic is a poetic language. Words often have different meanings. In this case, injustice not only means the lack of fairness or justice, but also implies the lack of life's light.
This reminds me of a story I learnt about once, the story of one of the first gods to be named in Greek mythology. His name was Erebus, the personification of the deep darkness of the universe. "Erebus," as a word, means a place of darkness between the land of the living and the eternal world of death. If Assad's network of detentions is the realisation of this idea of darkness and injustice, I think Sednaya is its Erebus.
From Message Heard and The Syria Campaign, this is Behind the Sun. I'm Nadia al-Bukai.
In early 2012, Diab was still active in the streets like hundreds of thousands of Syrians trying to put an end to Assad's rule. While he was in Adra Prison, Riyad got sick and was rushed to hospital. Riyad had a gastrointestinal perforation, which is a condition that might cause death if complications were to develop. For about five hours, doctors operated on him to save his life. When he woke up, Riyad found himself chained to the bed with lots and lots of tubes attached to his body to support his life. He learnt from the doctors that he had holes in his stomach.
RIYAD AVLAR The third day, they came and they said, "We have to make a test for you. We – we need money from you."
I said, "I don't have money."
They said, "Okay. If you don't have money, we couldn't do this test."
I said, "How I will find the money to you? I'm a prisoner. I don't have visit. My family didn't come. I don't have anybody here in this country, all the country." But I said, "Okay. I will solve this problem. I have a friend. Maybe if I called him, he will come immediately and give you the money which you want."
They said, "No. We don't accept your friend to come and give money. Just your family who can pay to you."
"Man, my family not here. They're in Turkey." And I said – I said, "They didn't even hear about me. How they will come and pay for you. Okay. You want money? My friend will bring and give you money, and we will solve everything."
"Oh, no. No. No. No. Forbidden."
NADIA AL-BUKAI This rejection was heavy on Riyad. He felt so helpless, and he started to remove all the life-supporting tubes. He was crying in despair, saying that he didn't want to live anymore. Quickly, doctors restrained and calmed him. They said they would call his friend. Of course, that friend was the Diab.
DIAB SERRIH A doctor called me and told me that a relative in the hospital needed tests and continued care, and somebody had to pay for his examinations and his medicines. I immediately knew he was talking about Riyad, which he confirmed. I asked what exactly was going on. The doctor told me not to worry. He's in the hospital and might need to stay there for a while.
I asked him which hospital, and he told me it was Damascus National Hospital. I went there with my father. He had demanded to come with me when he knew Riyad was sick.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Diab and his father went to buy some juice for Riyad. The doctor had told them that the fluids were the only nutrition Riyad's stomach could handle after the surgery.
DIAB SERRIH The doctor told us he couldn't deliver the juice, and he couldn't tell us any further, because intelligence agents were there. He made me feel that if they found out he was helping us, they might detain him. So, we had to find a way to enter and deliver it ourselves.
NADIA AL-BUKAI The intelligence agents prevented Diab and his father from seeing Riyad. But Diab's father argued loudly with them, which drew the attention of an intelligence officer. That was dangerous for Diab, who was freed from Sednaya a few months earlier.
After a separate interrogation for Diab and his father in which they told the officers that Riyad is Diab's brother-in-law, they were allowed to see Riyad.
DIAB SERRIH We went. And my dad has a tender heart. So, for him, the scene we found was extremely painful. Of course, my dad wasn't used to seeing anything like this. Riyad was almost naked, with just a small towel over his body. They had shackled one of his arms and chained both of his legs to the hospital bed. My dad looked and called the guard. "The man can't even walk. Are you afraid of him escaping? There are more than ten of you. How could he escape? Why all of these chains? Untie him for a minute."
And they did unshackle him. My dad helped Riyad up and wiped his forehead.
RIYAD AVLAR He came. He put his hand over my head, then my cheek, and he said, "Okay. Don't worry, my son. We will be with you. We will help you all times and we will try to help you all the time. And we paid for your test. Don't worry."
I told you before. It was very sensitive feelings and sensitive time for me when – always when I remember that moment.
NADIA AL-BUKAI In 2012, Assad's grip on power tore Syria to pieces. His loyalists' rhetoric often refer to the phrase, "Al-Assad aw nahriq al-balad," meaning "Assad or we burn the country."
This certainly became a reality. Assad's forces were mercilessly killing and kidnapping peaceful protestors in broad daylight in the streets. And the security/intelligence launched mass campaigns to arrest countless activists from their homes, especially those living in areas that were famous at the time for protesting and rising against Assad like Homs, Hama, and the others.
Assad seemed to develop a sense of being untouchable. All the threats from the West didn't deter him.
BILL NEELY Did it surprise you that they didn't attack?
BASHAR AL-ASSAD No. No. It wasn't a surprise. But I think [crosstalk].
NADIA AL-BUKAI NBC's Bill Neely was referring to the West not punishing Assad for committing more crimes. He asked this if I said in his 2016 interview. As you heard him say, Assad wasn't surprised that no one held him accountable for the crimes he committed, which included gassing the people in Hota in 2013 and other similar acts of brutality. His regime also got the message and was emboldened to ruthlessly continue crushing the Syrians.
DIAB SERRIH After my participation in the revolution, I was chased again and I was arrested again in 2012, in April. I spent one hundred days in the Air Force Intelligence branch. Those one hundred days were harder than the entire five years I spent in Sednaya Prison. There, I saw the real difference. I saw how these places changed dramatically from places where you could see human rights violations into sites of crimes against humanity. I witnessed how people were dying of starvation. I saw people dying under torture inside these intelligence branches. I saw people with the same wounds and sores, the extreme thinness.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Diab is describing a situation that would later become common for anyone arrested by Assad's men. In July 2012, my father Najah was arrested and sent to a military intelligence branch. They abducted him from the street while he was on his way to work. A Mukhabarat informant had passed his name to the intelligence, calling him a provocateur. He was crowded in a solitary confinement cell with tens of detainees. After one month of his arrest, he had already witnessed death, torture, and lost fifteen kilograms. My mother had to pay twelve hundred euros in exchange for his life and release.
DIAB SERRIH I didn't speak about my past, that I had been detained previously. I was so worried about telling them the story of my life and how I was detained before for five years, which would mean that they would never release me, that I would die there.
But instinctively, when the interrogator asked me, "Were you detained before?", I answered, "No. Never in my life have I been in a prison."
NADIA AL-BUKAI That kind of luck is very rare inside Assad's detention centres.
DIAB SERRIH I was released at the end of July 2012. I couldn't stay in Syria anymore, because I felt like I was under the spotlight. I felt the grip of the security forces was tightening. The detentions were growing to a mass scale. So, I felt that it was best to get out of Syria. There was no way to stay there, in that place. I felt like I couldn't move anymore.
NADIA AL-BUKAI It is also worth noting that Diab was from Damascus, a regime stronghold and also where he was arrested.
Mukhabarat men were so busy subduing the hotspots of the peaceful revolution. They were focused on persecuting people based on their IDs. If you are from Homs, Deraa, Idlib, Aleppo, or Darayya, it meant you were going to be targeted by the intelligence groups. Despite this, though, the protests continued to grow across the country.
Ghufran's family were from Darayya. During this time, they were trying to locate her brother Majed.
GHUFRAN KHULANI We start to go searching about him. About him and Abd. About any information. Me and my mother, we visit some families that have detainees coming out. We showed them pictures of Abd and Majed to ask them if they saw Abd or Majed inside the detention centre. We went to a lot of places for regime to ask about detainees. We went for official places and non-official places, and we always have same answer. "We don't have them. We don't know anything about them."
They saw us as bad people, and they deal with us in this way. But we kept asking.
NADIA AL-BUKAI I think that the persistence of Darayya's people is a reminder of how, despite Assad's tight grip, the people continue to fight back.
GHUFRAN KHULANI And even sometimes when we ask the regime or the soldier, they told us, "We killed him." In this very cold way, some of them to said that. "We killed them." Imagine they tell that to mother and his sister in very bad way.
NADIA AL-BUKAI That lie devastated the family so much. The news was coming about the death of detainees and detention. Many of those who were arrested in 2012 didn't come out. The families would go and ask for their loved ones with no answers. What was happening inside the Mukhabarat branches was unthinkable.
ABU EMAD For the first seven or eight days, nobody asked me any question.
NADIA AL-BUKAI This is Abu Emad, the army engineer from the last episode. He's from Jabal Zawiya, a town in Idlib Governorate, north-western Syria. Since late 2011, the area had seen a brutal crackdown by Assad's army. In one of the assaults, many of Abu Emad's relatives were killed.
When his commanding officers ordered him to accompany the operational officers in his town to assist them, he refused. After that, he was arrested and sent to the Military Investigation Branch 248 on charges of "thinking of defection."
ABU EMAD Every day, I have all hearing interrogation with civilians. "Why you are going to the protest? Who invite you to come? Who – who was with you?" And I hear the beating, screaming, torture, all kind of torture, just hearing and let my mind imagine what is happening outside the cell when I hear their screaming, the kind of the screaming. I'm sure nobody heard the scream like what I heard in the prison.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Despite being less than a ten-minute walk away from the central square in Damascus known as Umayyad Square, people passing by the Branch 248 can't hear these creams from the street. Like all the intelligence branches spread across the country, the infamous secret dungeons lie underneath a densely populated area. Their immense brutality could only be felt and heard within. That level of entrapment and isolation, I suppose, was meant to crack the minds of the detainees.
ABU EMAD I think when my turn will come, when I will scream like them. After one hour, after two hours, in this night, tomorrow, they will beat me, they will torture to scream like them or maybe they will shoot me directly, because I am an officer. Maybe nobody will ask me any question. Maybe they will execute me any time. Or they will investigate with me and they will beat me or torture me to scream like them.
NADIA AL-BUKAI After seven days of psychological torture, an interrogator came for Abu Emad.
ABU EMAD He told me, "I have nothing about you. I don't know what I'm going to ask you. There's nothing in your file."
So, I told him why I am here.
He told me, "Nothing in your file. So, I will release or I will make the report to release you these days. And maybe tomorrow or after tomorrow, you will be free."
This is after eight days. And after that, I went three, four days. Nothing happened. In this time, bad dreams, bad thinking coming to my mind. That's mean they will execute me. They know that I'm not belonged to them. I will not kill people. And I'm from very hot area, Jabal Zawiya, Idlib. The best solution for them to execute me without any reason.
NEWS REPORTER Welcome to all viewers on PBS in America and also around the world. For the third time in a week, we're getting reports of execution-style shootings in Syria. The latest accounts come of people being shot on the way to work at a factory. Diplomats are now talking about an apparent pattern of attacks against Syrian civilians. Indeed, the UN says the massacre of more than a hundred last week in Houla may amount to a crime against humanity. But the international community still can't agree on what to do to stop this bloodshed.
NADIA AL-BUKAI On the 25th of May 2012, in Houla, northwest of Homs, one hundred and eight people were killed, including thirty-four women and forty-nine children. This pattern by Assad's forces, was repeated in my village, in Jdeidet Artouz, a suburb of Damascus.
On the 1st of August 2012, thirty-five people and some of the victims were tortured and killed execution-style. Some of them were from my family.
The thing that haunts me the most about this massacre is that Assad men left some dead bodies under olive trees. People were murdered beneath olive branches. It was a message in response to the revolution.
After this massacre, my family and I had to flee our home in Jdeidet Artouz and live with my grandparents in Damascus. We weren't the only people thinking that this could happen to us. The atrocities in Jdeidet Artouz stuck in the minds of everyone in Syria.
With each passing day, the families of the detainees became more worried about their loved ones. If Assad was doing this in broad daylight, what would he do to their children in the dark detention dungeons?
For a long time, Ghufran's family were trying to locate Majed until one day their phone rang with good news. Ghufran's family learnt that their son was still alive. The man who called them was Majed's fellow detainees.
GHUFRAN KHULANI He said only one sentence. "I have information about Majed and I want to meet you in any place."
My brother went directly to see him. He was first person he have information about Majed. He said that he were with him, and they brought him in a small cell. Individual, not with a group. And also they give him number. When they call names, they don't call his names. They call number.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Inside Assad's death gaps and detention centres, his men give the detainees numbers instead of their names just to make it extremely hard for anyone to trace them. But the detainees inside the packed chambers and in neighbouring cells talk to each other. It's the only form of resistance they have inside these unjust places, to keep telling their stories.
ABU EMAD We are whispering to each other. "Who are you? From where you are coming?" We know each other. For example, my neighbour, he was whispering to me about his name and his [under] arresting. And also, he telling me, "I have another neighbour beside me." And his neighbour told him also he has another neighbour like that. So, we know we – we are neighbours. There is a row of cells where they are putting in everyone, in each one of us.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Abu Emad wasn't executed as he thought he would be. After not finding anything that would incriminate him at Branch 248, they moved him to another detention, Branch 293. It's the main Military Intelligence Directorate's branch responsible for keeping Assad's control over army officers. But after 2011, there were civilians inside as well.
The scale of the abduction was massive. The place was packed full of detainees to the extent that they used the toilets as cells.
ABU EMAD Four or five cells from me, there is one civilian guy. He's shouting. Sometime, he's shouting in the night, especially on the night, "Stop this train. Stop this train." He was imagining himself that he's riding train or traveling by train. All the time, he's shouting, "Stop this train. Driver, stop this train. I want to go home."
Maybe he's since one month, two months here. He – he lost his mind. And if I stay like him like that, after a few days or months or a few weeks, I will be like him.
NADIA AL-BUKAI After torture and coercion, Abu Emad signed a confession that said he thought of defection.
ABU EMAD After a few days, they move us around fifteen people. They came at the night time. They shout my name and other fourteen. We are fifteen people. They put us in other room. We – we name it Mihrab room.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Al-Mihrab is a curved mark inside the wall of a mosque that indicates the direction of Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying. That room in Branch 293 had the same mark, according to Abu Emad. But it wasn't a place of God.
ABU EMAD This room, it was completely closed. Only one door, iron door, in opening area. The smell was very, very, very, very bad. Even sometime, we cannot take a breath. You feel if you breath in this musty smell or rotten smell, you will die. We are putting our clothes in our nose to try to take some good air or filter the air to breathe, and it's not work. After that, we give up. We are waiting our time to die from this smell. I just can tell you the smell – the smell was there. Yeah. And it remind you for the grave, how you will be inside your grave.
After seven days, they released us from there and they move us to Sednaya.
NADIA AL-BUKAI As Abu Emad neared Sednaya, he got some guidance from a fellow prisoner.
ABU EMAD There was one guy was with us in the car. He told, "We are going to Sednaya, and my advice to you, when they open the door, jump directly from the door to outside. Don't wait your turn. Jump forward. Because if you reach there and you didn't jump directly, he will push you from – from behind and you will fall down in your face. And maybe you will break your hand or your leg or your nose, or you will injure yourself."
When the car stopped, we jumped and they took us inside. They ask us to take off all our clothes. One of the guards, he said, "Now, we welcome you. And you know our welcome or maybe you don't know, but you will see now."
And after that, they asked us to lay down on the ground, on our stomach, and to raise our legs to up. And it's called, in Arabic, doulab. English, tyre. They bring one car tyre. They – they take a small piece, around one metre length. And, you know, this kind of plastic tyre, the car tyre, inside, it's coming some iron, the iron inside the tyre. And they start beating us. They lashes us on our feet. If you move your feet down, he will lash you in your back if you scream or you move or you give any sound.
This is big crime in Sednaya. So, when he lashes us, it's not allowed, because I heard also our friend, they have some experience and they teach us, while we are in the bus. "Don't shout. Don't scream. Don't say anything. Your voice. Be careful that – that they will not hear you."
For me, when he was lashing me on my feet, the – the tyre, there is one metre inside, it stuck in my nails, in my foot nails, and it's took it out with the blood. So, I sound like this, "Mm." From the pain.
So, he told him, "Give him four more, because his sound. Four more lashes."
NADIA AL-BUKAI Sednaya's so-called welcome parties are infamous. No one escapes from them. Whoever ends up being in Sednaya has to be welcomed by Assad men, regardless of age, status, or physical condition. It's a declaration by Assad men that they are the gods of this place. Once it's done, they stuff tens of people inside tiny, dark solitary cells.
ABU EMAD We released to the cells. They put us inside naked for seven days. Temperature around zero, minus one. You know, Sednaya area, very high from the sea level. It was January. The temperature, it – it was very, very cold. We are five people who are warming each other. We hugging each other just to gain some – some warmth.
We reach to the level from the cold. Sometime you cannot control the movement from your body. Your hand, your face, your lips, your legs, your stomach. Everything shaking, vibrating from the cold. You cannot control it. If I want to whisper to my friend, I cannot control my tongue and my lips to say one word from the cold, from the freezing weather inside. For seven days.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Every day, the guards would come, open the door hatch, and drop the food. And by, I mean a few olives.
ABU EMAD And next, they took us upstairs to another big room. We were twenty-five prisoners inside. They give us our clothes. Not complete. They took the good quality one, and they give us the – the rubbish from the clothes just to cover ourself. And everyone, they gave him two blanket, military blanket. I imagine or calculating maybe around two thousand people in each floor and around like that. Our imagination count how many room from this side, how many rooms from this side. And if each room containing twenty-five people, that's mean we are two thousand. From that two thousand people in each floor, you hear nothing. Nothing. If you are on the wall, maybe you will imagine this area, it's empty. Nobody. Meanwhile, there is more than two thousand in each floor. Not any sound.
Sometimes, I hear screaming. And when this guy scream, that means don't want to stay alive. That's why he's screaming from the beating, because he want them to beat him or lashes him again to die.
NADIA AL-BUKAI For a detainee to get a visit in Sednaya, his family has to go through a lengthy, expensive, and hard journey. One year after her brother's enforced disappearance, Ghufran and her family knew their whereabouts. A senior officer had asked for a bribe to help them.
GHUFRAN KHULANI Someone very high in military, he said he can make us see them. And at the same day, in the morning, me and my mother, we were asking about them in official places for government, and they said, "We don't have them. We don't know anything about them."
And at evening, when my brother pays the money in very secret way, because not easy and you will punish, they promise, this person, to show us Majed. And because before a lot of soldiers told us they kill him, we want the very much to see him in person. So, we paid this money and we went there. They gave us kind of envelop. But this envelop, you cannot open it. They said you have to go to Sednaya Prison and to give this envelope to the guards there.
NADIA AL-BUKAI One of the reasons why the Assad regime creates uncertainties about the status of the detainees is because his men benefit from enforced disappearance. It's estimated that the regime officers amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes from the detainees' families.
GHUFRAN KHULANI We want to see him in person, he is alive. But at the same time, we are afraid to see him in bad situation, like in bad health or something. But we want to see him.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Between 2012 and 2013, the fight between the regime and the rebels intensified. The regime, of course, were much better equipped with the weapons they had. Yet the Free Syrian Army and other factions started to take control and "liberate" more and more areas from the regime that responded by besieging and bombing those areas. Checkpoints were everywhere, and the road to Sednaya wasn't easy for the families.
GHUFRAN KHULANI We have to stop more than one point for the regime, checkpoint, and they check us and they deal also with us badly, because they know we are family of activists.
When we arrive to the place, also they search you and search your body in very bad way to check you don't have anything.
We were full of happiness that, oh, he is alive and we can see him finally after one year of not knowing if he is alive or not. So, we are going now to see him alive. So, it was big moment. And we wait for a long time. Waiting, waiting for nothing. Then, t they brought bus. But this bus, its window black. So, you cannot see outside. And they took the families to the building, and they put us in one rooms. It's like large, and there is desk everywhere for people to sit that's like school desk. The soldier tell you from outside I'm not allowed to tell him anything about what happening outside the prison. Only "hello" and "Hi. How are you?" Only that. They threatened us. If we tell him anything about what happening outside the prison, they will punish Majed.
When you are there, you saw the family before you go and come. They are in a queue. You saw when they come after seeing their loved how much are crying. So, there is kind of fear what they are seeing there.
NADIA AL-BUKAI The same kind of instructions are delivered to the detainees as well. No matter what happens, you're not allowed to say anything other than "Hi. How are you? I'm fine." Disobedience won't be tolerated.
GHUFRAN KHULANI We went there to saw Majed. And we know from before, only five minutes. They told you five minutes. We just cry. And he cry. He was very thin. But at the same time, he is – was strong from inside. His feeling and personality, you feel that. When he was speaking to us, he's still full of hope.
"Going out. I will see you again."
And he want to touch our faces, to see us more, because we miss him and he miss us. So, at the time, we – you cannot hug him, because there is barriers between you and him from – made from kind of iron. And also between the irons, there is kind of small space. And in this space, there is, like, very huge soldier cross this space, and he is on another side after the bus. And also on his side, there is also kind of iron. So, there is distance between him and us. Sometimes, we need to shout to make him hear us. It's like only a wink, because it's just five minutes. And they come to take him. And we start to cry again.
You feel how much dictator they are. Not allowed to hug him, not allowed to do anything. But what was good was his spirit was very high and full of hope and faith about what he doing and what he believe. And that make the visit a little bit easier on us. At that day, we are only glad he's still alive. We were very happy he's still alive.
NADIA AL-BUKAI The intermediary who took money from Ghufran's family told them that Abd was transferred to Sednaya, and they could see him as, though for a bigger cost. The family sold some of their properties to pay for both visits. They took Abd's children to see their father more than a year after his disappearance.
GHUFRAN KHULANI When they brought him, we thought another person maybe for another family. We don't recognise him. We thought he is another person, because he was very skinny and there, they shaved his head. His body very weak. And only just when he arrived, from his eyes, we recognised him. Nothing – nothing the same.
His son when also saw him, he didn't recognise his dad, because his son was young.
He was worried about us, asking what happened, how is Majed. He don't know that Majed is also inside. Asked us if Majed good or not.
Last time, both of them, their body was weaker than when we saw them before. You can notice they are – they are struggling inside. Even you cannot say anything and also they cannot say anything. Only emotionally, and you feel that and because you know what happening inside.
NADIA AL-BUKAI In early 2013, news that prisoners were being killed in Sednaya started to get out. Ghufran's family tried different ways to get Majed and Abd transferred out of Sednaya, but it didn't work. Adding to the family's restlessness, the middle man who used to facilitate their visits in exchange for money defected and left the country. Without these visits, the family couldn't tell if Majed and Abd were dead or alive.
Around that time, Abu Emad was transferred from Sednaya's red building to the white one. His family had paid thousands of US dollars for that to happen. But he didn't know that. Unfortunately, in Sednaya's white building, something sinister was happening.
ABU EMAD This is my nightmare up to this moment. There is one day during the week, they instruct us to go to sleep at the time of sunset. Around six, six-thirty in the evening, they instruct us go to sleep at this – at this time exactly. Very early. When they instruct us to go to sleep, and after that, we felt strange movement outside, a lot of precaution procedures they are taking. Every five minute, inside the door, there's a small window, ten [centi] by ten by [centi] just to watch us.
One of the guards, he come near to our door and opened this small window. Every five minutes, approximately, he's coming and to check if we are sleep yet or not. So, we understand that there is something strange happening.
After midnight, we hear some truck coming near to us from outside. And after that, we hear that some people walking without shoes. That means they are prisoners like us. And we hear some lashes from time to time on the – the skin or flesh. We hear this – this sound. And that's that this movement, maybe for five or ten minute, they take it downstairs. We can figure from the sound, from what we are hearing. We are hearing the steps of people and guard around them, and we hear the lashes on their bodies. That means they are almost naked.
The sound of the guards also around the – the prisoners, it's very low sound, like whispers. "Move." Like that. "Move. Move. Move. Move. Don't say anything. Don't look around. Move in front of you." Like that. The whispers of the guard. But the others, we only hear their steps outside to downstairs. And after that, we hear nothing.
'Til morning, every five to ten minutes, somebody come to open this small door to check if we are sleeping or not. In the morning, after they allow us to wake up, I hear the sound of the [unintelligible] on the mountain beside us, beside Sednaya Prison. The machine, cars, the sound of the [unintelligible], which is let you imagine or figure out without any doubt that they were executing prisoners in the night and they are [unintelligible] them now at eight or nine o'clock.
Every week, we hear the same story. All of us, we don't have any doubt that they are doing that from the sound we are hearing.
NADIA AL-BUKAI In a report titled "The Human Slaughterhouse," Amnesty International documented harrowing pattern of mass executions at Sednaya Prison. Between 2011 and 2015, it is estimated that thirty thousand prisoners were killed in secret there. It described in detail how the Assad's regime walked the detainees blindfolded to their death by hanging in an execution room underneath Sednaya's white building. After that, they took the Tishreen Military Hospital for registration and then to mass graves. Overall, it is estimated that tens of thousands of people died in Sednaya of starvation, torture, and execution. Until now, families don't know where their loved ones are buried.
Abu Emad's family managed to pay $35,000 to spare his life in Sednaya. But when the guards told him he would be released, he didn't believe them.
ABU EMAD I thought they are joking. I cannot believe this. How they will release me? Because I don't know what happened with my family and they pay money. I don't—. I know nothing. So, I was completely shocked. And I don't have any doubt that they are going to execute me one hundred percent. I'm not going outside this area. Never. Only to the grave.
If he told me, "We are going to execute you," I will believe. If you told me, "We are moving you to another room where is books allowed to read," then I cannot imagine better than this news. But you are telling me, "You are free." Like, if I told you you win $1 billion today, you are not going to believe.
NADIA AL-BUKAI When he was freed, he discovered that his family had left the country. He had to stay at his mother-in-law's flat in Damascus while still in a state of disbelief about his release from Sednaya. The detention rules and sounds hunted him.
Detainees have to gather in the cell toilet once the door opens.
ABU EMAD First night, I have doubt they will come to arrest me anytime, but they are waiting somebody to come to say hi to me, and they will arrest us. This is a trap from them. So, all night, when I hear any sound outside (car sound, steps, knocking on the door) I run directly to the toilet, because I'm used to run to the toilet from the Sednaya time. When you hear any steps, you have to be in the toilet.
I ran to the toilet. My mother-in-law, "What happened, [unintelligible]? What you are?"
I – I say, "Nothing. Nothing. I just want to go to the toilet."
First day is like that. I cannot sleep very well. Sometime, I analyse why I'm not sleeping. Maybe one of the reason I don't want to go to sleep, maybe I will wake up and this is a dream that I'm released. Really.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Detention in Sednaya leaves the scars and survivors that would never heal. What they experienced inside Sednaya's tight and dark cells lives with them for the rest of their lives.
ABU EMAD Sednaya should be removed from the earth. It should be removed completely. It's better to remove it like cancer.
After a few months, when I am able to go out of Damascus, my family, they come to visit me. I left behind me, my little daughter, [Ruru], one year and two months old. She was trying to make her first steps. I left her in this situation. So, all time, in the prison when I remember my family with a smile, you know, like mine – mine right now, I imagine her one-point-two years old and the trying to make his steps, and falling down and I catch it like that. Always, I'm playing with her. And she's fourteen months old. So, she's still in my mind fourteen months old, trying to make her first steps, for more than two years.
Every day, this photo, this video, this imagination, I'm living with this girl fourteen months, trying to make her first step. So, when I saw her, it become more than three years.
This is not [Ruru]. Where is that [Ruru], the child trying to make her first steps? I miss that girl. They killed her.
This is my story.
NADIA AL-BUKAI For five years, Ghufran's family searched tirelessly for Majed and Abd. If they could, they would have turned the earth upside down to know where they were and what happened to them.
In the summer of 2018, the family received Majed and Abd's death certificates.
GHUFRAN KHULANI It was shocking, deadly shocking for all the family. My sister told me in the phone what she know about. But in beginning, my mom and dad, they don't know. I told her and told my dad. It was very difficult and shocking. Hard to breaking. And I want to tell them what happened. But at the same time, I'm afraid about them, their health.
NADIA AL-BUKAI After a campaign led by the families demanding answers about the missing detainees inside Assad's death camps, in 2018, the regime began to release death certificates to some family members visiting their local civil registry office in search of their loved ones. Instead of acknowledging that detainees' deaths were caused by starvation, torture, and executions, the Assad regime said all the deaths were due to natural causes.
GHUFRAN KHULANI According to the official record, they both had passed away on the same day, 15h of January. And I don't know how the regime in beginning all the time denied they have them. And now, he release certificate death for this – for all these detainees, not only my brothers.
And after waiting all this long time and searching with hope and fear at the same time and in very bad way, the regime released information without any kind of feeling.
My family situation were similar to a lot of families in my city who received same certificate of death.
NADIA AL-BUKAI Ghufran and so many other Syrian families continue to fight for their right to find out the truth about their missing loved ones and for the detainees in Syria to be freed.
Currently, there are still hundreds of thousands of people inside Assad's network of prisons, including Sednaya. Behind each is a heartbreaking story of pain and loss, and justice is nowhere in sight.
Next week on Behind the Sun, we continue with Assad's use of official documents to consolidate his grip on the country, Riyad sees horrors in Adra, Diab gets back to Syria, and Ghufran's family is facing another tragedy.
Behind the Sun is a co-production between Message Heard and The Syria Campaign, in collaboration with the Association of Detainees and the Missing (ADMSP) and the Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability (SJAC) under its project, On the Margins No More.
This series is written and produced by Muhammad Farouk.
Thank you to Ranim, Ola, Sarah, Mais, and Ruairi from The Syria Campaign and Rahaf from ADMSP for helping put this series together.
Additional thanks to Mahmoud Nowara for providing voiceover and translation.
Editing, mixing, and sound design was done by Jarek Zaba and Ivan Easley.
Additional production support from Molly Freeman, Tom Biddle, and Lincoln Van der Westhuizen. Sandra Ferrari is the executive producer. The theme music is by Milo Evans.
My name is Nadia al-Bukai.
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