Avaaz Report: Syrian Detention Facilities #Syria #AssadCrimes #UN #ICC

Syrian Detention Facilities

clipped from article: Revealing the Scale and Horror of Assad’s Torture Chambers:

An Avaaz Report on the Locations and Conditions of Syria’s Detention Facilities

09 January 2012

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Press Release

I. What are the Methods of Torture?

II. Where are Detention Centres Located in Syria?

III. Who Are the Regime Officers Complicit in Torture?

Executive Summary

This report is linked to an interactive map of Syria indicating the location of the detention centers: http://disappeared.avaaz.org/detentioncentres.html

Detention centres are managed by various government security bodies, including: the Political Security, Military Security, State Security, and Airforce Intelligence. This report presents the organisational structure and detention centre location within each province.

Torture is prevalent and takes place in almost all detention centres. Most severe forms of torture take place in the military, security and air force intelligence branches where victims are interrogated before they are sometimes transferred to prisons. Most former detainees have reported that conditions in prisons are less terrible than those of state branches, as they receive some food in prisons. Aside from torture, many of the detainees gave evidence of severe overcrowding.

In addition to the listed prisons, there are several locations for illegal, make-shift detention centers, including local schools, soccer fields, movie theaters, hospitals, factories, sport stadiums, warehouses, abandoned buildings, and underground storage areas. There are individual military prisons on every single base in Syria.

Press Release

Revealing the Scale and Horror of Assad’s Torture Chambers:

An Avaaz Report on the Locations and Conditions of Syria’s Detention Facilities

On Thursday, 12 January, the global campaigning organisation Avaaz published a report into the horror and scale of the Syrian regime’s detention facilities, as the Arab League observers continue their mission inside the country.

Bashar al-Assad’s security forces are detaining and in most cases torturing Syrian citizens opposed to the regime in overcrowded prisons, jails and illegal detention centers across the country. Avaaz has compiled the locations of these dungeons -- which even include schools -- and the names of regime loyalists running the facilities and the torturers-in-chief setting detention policy at the highest levels.

Human rights activists working with Avaaz across Syria have catalogued first-hand accounts of horrific torments and conditions suffered by peaceful protesters and ordinary Syrians caught up in the brutal crackdown, rotting inside the Assad regime’s notorious jails and prisons.

More than 617 people have been confirmed killed under torture by regime forces since the crackdown started on March 15 of last year. Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on Syria’s popular uprising has claimed at least 6,874 victims and seen a further 69,000 people detained over the course of the last nine months.

Stephanie Brancaforte, Campaign Director at Avaaz, said: “Assad’s henchmen have tried to break the pro-democracy movement in these torture chambers, but brave Syrians are still standing up for their rights -- and demanding that the Arab League not betray their overwhelmingly peaceful struggle. A credible Arab League mission would visit these torture chambers and ensure the regime immediately end these atrocities. Enough is enough - it’s time for the UN to sanction Bashar al-Assad and his band of torturers and refer them to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.”

In August in Hama, Avaaz activist “Manhal” was arrested by security forces after being found in possession of a Thuraya satellite phone and several videos of demonstrations. He was taken to the Military Intelligence Branch - Branch 285 - in Damascus and held for 64 days. “Manhal” said: “They pulled out my fingernails and toenails. They made me stand up for 8 days, tying my hands on metal bars above my head. They gave me no water, no food, no toilet, no place to sleep until I confessed to being a terrorist, and they always beat me. I have seen so much death, and I’ve been tortured nearly to death. They used electricity. They put it on sensitive areas on your body. They poured water on my body and they started beating me, beat beat beat. My skin became blue. My ribs were also broken. We were about 15 people in a 10-square-meter room without air, without even a window. We didn’t sleep, we just sit on each other. They gave us 2-3 litres of water for all of us per day and just some bread. I left many people in the same situation.”

In Damascus, there is a street known locally as “Branches Street” due to the number of state security branches situated there, some of them underground, where torture and overcrowding are known to be commonplace. Some of the regime’s most notorious torture chambers can be found behind al-Jamerek Building in the Kafr Souseh area of the capital, including the Military Raids Branch, Military Investigations Branch (or Branch 228), Damascus Intelligence Branch (or Branch 227) and two detention facilities – one on the 4th floor, and one on the ground floor.

Avaaz's research adheres to a strict verification process. Each death or arrest is confirmed by three independent sources, including a family member of the deceased and in the case of a death, the imam who performed the funeral procession.

Working with a team of 58 human rights monitors in Syria, in addition to partner organisations on the ground, the global campaign organisation Avaaz has verified the deaths of 6,874 people in Syria between March 15 to December 9 of last year.

Of the 69,000 detained since March, over 37,000 people remain in detention and some 32,000 people have been released, many of them bearing scars from torture and violence.


Methodology

Avaaz's research adheres to a strict verification process.
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