Everything about “Sydnaya” prison; From the torture of prisoners to the publication of Hollywood rumors
Mehr News Agency, group between The International: Simultaneously with the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the rise of terrorists in Syria, many news and reports about the behind-the-scenes era of Bashar al-Assad’s rule, including pictures of assets, houses and private cars Bashar Assad is heard on one side and Syrian prisons on the other. One of the most important discussions raised these days in media sources and social pages is related to the central prison of the city of Damascus called “Sydnaya” prison, which was occupied by terrorists in the early morning hours of December 8 and all its prisoners were released.
Where is Saidnaya prison?
Seydnaya prison is located 30 kilometers north of Damascus and was built in 1987. This prison, which is built in a triangular shape, has two parts. The first part is called the red building, which includes political and civilian prisoners, and the second part is called the white building, which was reserved for military prisoners.
This prison was under the supervision of the Syrian Public Security Police under the Ministry of Defense, and especially after the events of 2011. and the intensification of terrorist activities in Syria, many strict measures were taken against the prisoners in this prison. Some of the arrested people report that they have been imprisoned in this prison for several months without trial.
Sydnaya was one of the strongest military prisons of the Syrian government, about which many rumors have been raised, and the media opposing the government, citing the report of Amnesty International in the year In 2017, they named it “Human Slaughterhouse”. Saidnaya is also called the Red Prison; Because the opponents believe that there has been a lot of bloodshed after the events of the last decade.
Although human rights organizations claimed some mistreatment of political prisoners in Syria before 2011, but during the last decade, according to international reports and announcements of opposition groups The Syrian government, in addition to increasing the number of prisoners in the main Syrian prisons, has also increased the execution and torture of prisoners who were mainly from armed terrorist groups.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced in January 2021 that about 30,000 people are imprisoned in this prison. While more authentic reports have estimated the number of prisoners between 10,000 and 20,000. Amnesty International also reported in February 2017 that between 2011 and 2015, that is, after the start of terrorist groups’ activities in Syria, around 5,000 to 13,000 people were executed in this prison.
Behind the scenes of supernatural legends about the torture of Syrian prisoners
Mistreatment in Syrian prisons and torture of government opponents, although it is an undeniable fact, but a significant part of the prisoners in Saydnaya are sympathizers of terrorist groups that have recently been established in Damascus. They have come to work. These people who were members of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra in the past as the old version of Tahrir al-Sham editorial board; Since 2011, they have committed many crimes against civilians and various people in Syria, which many people have seen their pictures and videos over the past decade, and the Syrian people have very bad memories of them.
In the uproar of the change of government in Syria, however, some former prisoners for different purposes, including highlighting their activities and struggles against Bashar al-Assad’s government and getting their share It is the cake of the new government, they have tried to exaggerate the tortures that took place in this prison and the existence of secret cells in it. One of the most important of these rumors is related to a secret door that led from the prison kitchen to a basement that reached the red building and included 10 floors underground where hundreds of prisoners were locked up!
These claims, which are more like legends, are made while the searches of the civil defense forces to find such areas have been unsuccessful and the existence of such cells in the prison is basically denied. It has been.
The Al-Arabiya network is one of the most important media sources that publishes false and untrue news about what it calls brutal tortures in the security prisons of Bashar al-Assad’s government. In this regard, Al-Arabiya claimed on his Facebook that there are dozens of secret prisons in Syria that have not yet been identified, a matter that has been denied even by the groups that dominate Syria.
In this regard, the Syrian Civil Defense announced that the operation to find possible prisoners in the alleged underground detention centers in Saydnaya prison has ended.
The body stressed that there is no evidence of the existence of secret basements or undiscovered detention centers in Saidnaya prison.
The other day, the headquarters of the Tahrir al-Sham terrorist organization known as the “Military Operations Department” announced in a statement that there is no prison left in Syria whose doors have not been opened. .
According to this report, the terrorist group Tahrir al-Sham, which has taken control of Damascus, asked the Syrian people to fake news about the existence of underground or secret prisons in this Do not pay attention to the country.
Al-Arabiya’s reports in this regard were mostly made without reliable sources and without even naming the whistleblowers and their positions, which shows that it is more than based on reality. It has been done based on advertising blackmail to engage people in this news.
The existence of underground holes to lock up prisoners is another rumor raised at a time when the stories seem to be getting weirder. It is easier to believe them. Some prisoners have said that there are underground holes in Saydnaya prison where the prisoners were locked up. A video about this claim has been published in the mass media, including the American CNN network, which speaks with an emotional language of the excitement and terror of an individual who is rescued from this pit by the forces opposing the government!
In the meantime, media reports show that this image is fake. This image is taken from a Tik Tok post published in early December. The creator of this post pointed out its fakeness in the hashtags, and Meta Internet Institute also introduced this post as a video made with the help of artificial intelligence . The Mesbar Arab-language verification website has also investigated and rejected this claim.
Other claims that the bodies of the victims of these prisons were burned have also been published in mass media, a claim that although Some foreign sources have warned about it, but other than the rising smell of burning or the sighting of mysterious objects by former prisoners, there is no reliable reason to make these claims.
Another claim raised by the prisoners is the existence of solitary cells where the prisoners were tortured. The prisoners say that due to the humidity in the building and the presence of sewage, these parts had a stench.
Al-Arabiya’s warning against spreading rumors!
These days, rumor-mongering has become so hot in Syrian public opinion that it has even raised the voice of the cook! The high and incredible volume of rumors in virtual networks about Bashar Assad’s prisons in Syria has reached the point where even Al-Arabiya network, as one of the pioneers of these rumors, warned in a report about the large volume of these rumors in cyberspace.
In the report that Al-Arabiya network published after the initial news about the secret cells, the searches carried out in this prison by 5 expert groups from the white hats to Syrian civil defense forces accompanied by trained police dogs to identify different parts of the prison pointed out. Therefore, according to the report, the mentioned groups have checked all the entrances and openings of ventilation and sewage pipes and the openings related to the passage of electric wires and cables of closed-circuit cameras and have not found any signs of the existence of secret and undiscovered prisons or legendary tortures.
Goals behind spreading rumors
Although in every sudden political change, The occurrence of such rumors seems natural and the public opinion of the country shows a special interest in knowing about the behind the scenes existing during the past regime, but the direction and direction of the current rumor spreading and its high volume and the nature of the media agents overseeing these activities indicate Organized goals behind the scenes This is the effort.
While the terrorists ruling Damascus introduce themselves as “Islamist jihadist currents”, there is no movement, even verbally, regarding the military aggression of the Zionist regime. They do not show and even implicitly do not condemn the military presence of the Zionist regime that has advanced to the vicinity of Damascus, the public opinion feels a kind of contradiction in the speech and behavior of these groups. These conditions require the creation of propaganda blackmail to divert public opinion from the movements of the Zionists.