(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Assad's Prisons! [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-12-09 I read a Tweet that said 150,000 people were being held in the Saydnaya prison. x Thanks to Allah.. After much efforts exerted by technicians, electronic gates of Saydnaya Prison were opened and around 150,000 prisoners are being released now! pic.twitter.com/zmzR6H61fQ — Motasem A Dalloul (@AbujomaaGaza) December 9, 2024 I started to look for more info. Saydnaya Prison: Mapping the Assads' 'human slaughterhouse' Since the collapse of the Assad regime on Sunday, Syrian civilians hoping for news of their relatives have been flocking towards the country's most secretive and notorious prison, Saydnaya. Established in the early 1980s in a small town about 30km north of the capital Damascus, Saydnaya is where the Assad family has held opponents of their regime for decades. Referred to as a "human slaughterhouse" by rights groups, thousands of people are said to have been detained, tortured and executed at the prison since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. The layout of Saydnaya has been a closely guarded secret and images from inside the prison have never been seen before. Details of the prison's layout can only be established based on interviews with former guards and detainees. x Probably the youngest political prisoner on planet ever. Together with his mum, he was released from Assad’s #Saydnaya_prison by the #SyrianRebels. Likely, the son of a female prisoner who was raped & gave birth in prison. Assad is a warcriminal pic.twitter.com/qwRzzwBjqq — Mal Kash (@Mal_Kash1) December 9, 2024 x Syrians are still being broken out of #Assad’s infamous #Saydnaya prison — as each layer underground is being accessed with time. Extraordinary scenes. pic.twitter.com/6g35z9nUGO — Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) December 8, 2024 x As the Mujahideen work to break open the underground levels of the notorious Saydnaya prison in Damascus, where more than 100,000 people remain imprisoned, they see through camera footage that many prisoners are still sitting in their cells, unaware of what has happened and what… pic.twitter.com/Oip7vDPtAH — Rachid Abu Khuzaymah (@r_abukhuzaymah) December 8, 2024 'I hope my dad comes back... I have never heard his voice' In the hours after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, hundreds have descended on the site which for many most encapsulated his oppressive rule: the Saydnaya prison. The notorious military complex has been used to detain tens of thousands of people who fell foul of the Syrian government over the decades. Among those searching for people who have vanished inside its walls was Jwan Omar, a Syrian living in Turkey. He travelled to Saydnaya prison on Sunday to search for his father-in-law who disappeared in 2013, after being arrested by the regime who accused him of helping the opposition. "I went to the prison and showed photos of my father-in-law but nobody recognised him," Omar told the BBC. Reports of people trapped underground at notorious Syrian prison The Syrian civil defence group known as the White Helmets says it is investigating reports from survivors of the country's notorious Saydnaya prison that people are being detained in hidden underground cells. Writing on X, the group says it has deployed five "specialised emergency teams" to the prison, who are being helped by a guide familiar with the prison's layout. Saydnaya is one of the prisons to have been liberated as rebels took control of the country. Authorities in Damascus province reported that efforts were continuing to free prisoners, some of whom were "almost choking to death" from lack of ventilation. The Damascus Countryside Governorate has appealed on social media to former soldiers and prison workers in Bashar al-Assad's regime to provide the rebel forces with the codes to electronic underground doors. You need to read the entire articles, pretty hard to do. x This is Raghid Al-Tatari. He is a Syrian Air Force Pilot who refused to bomb the city of Hama on Hafez Assad orders in the early 1980s. He was freed today from Saydnaya prison after 43 years of jail. #Syria. pic.twitter.com/5mnEygGsQJ — Qalaat Al Mudiq (@QalaatAlMudiq) December 8, 2024 I think I have posted enough. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/9/2291043/-Assad-s-Prisons?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/