The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that at least 542 people have been killed under torture in the prisons of the Assad regime since the beginning of 2018. It described torture of detainees as a systematic, deliberate policy that the Assad regime has been pursuing since 2011.
In a new reported issued on Thursday, the Network said that the victims included one child and one woman. The month of July saw a sharp increase in deaths resulting from torture in the prisons of the Assad regime. The Assad regime issued lists of names of detainees who died in its prisons without specifying the cause and place of death.
The report relied on testimonies of families of victims. The families received information on the fate of their loved ones through paying bribes to Assad regime officials as well as through search and monitoring.
The report pointed to difficulty of access to detention facilities, which makes it difficult to do an accurate documentation of deaths. The figures presented in the report represent a minimum of the violations against detainees. The lists of thousands of names that were received by civil registry departments contained names of detainees about whom nothing was known before.
The issuance of the death notices caused widespread outrage, the Network said. It called for forcing the Assad regime to give access to its detention facilities in order to expose the gross violations and crimes taking place against detainees.
Meanwhile, dozens of people held a sit-in in the town of Dabiq in rural Aleppo on Thursday. Participants held signs that read “stop the killing in the jails of death,” “where is your humanity, countries claiming to defend humanity,” “release the detainees, and “where is international law?”
Coordination Committee of the Syrian revolution in Istanbul and the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison on Thursday called for holding a demonstration on Friday to denounce the crimes being committed by the Assad regime against detainees in its prisons.
The demonstration will be held under the title “Day of Rage for Victims of Torture in Assad’s Prisons.” Organizers of the demonstration called on Syrian activists and human rights organizations to gather in Istiklal Street in the Turkish city of Istanbul to convey the voice of the remaining detainees in Assad’s prisons and expose the Assad regime’s crimes against detainees as well as its crackdown on freedom of expression. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
