Human Security Centre Human Rights and International Security Research
By Sam Biden, Junior Fellow
29 January, 2025
Fall of Assad
With the announcement of the formation of a transitional government as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) successfully toppled the 50 year old Ba’athist Syrian Government under former dictator Bashar al-Assad, full details of the violent path from protest to prison cell emerges. While the reign of Assad originates in mid-2000, the full oppression of his former critics would only be realized following the beginning of the 2011 uprising against him. A groundbreaking report by the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIMM) focusing on post 2011 Syria state that critics of Assad, regardless of the reasons for their arrest, were subjected to systematic torture and inhumane treatment as integral parts of interrogation and imprisonment. Key Syrian stakeholders routinely used interrogations to extract information about protest organization, opposition activities, or plans to defect from the military or security forces. This information is then weaponized to identify and detain others, resulting in thousands of individuals being tortured simply for exercising their political rights. Deaths in detention were often shrouded in secrecy, with many victims buried in unmarked mass graves, leaving families in limbo.
Government stakeholders
The hierarchy of roles in the oppression of critics varied from oversight to implementation. Primarily, oversight, including the creation and coordination of schemes targeting critics, was run by the Central Crisis Management Committee (CCMC) and National Security Bureau (NSB). The CCMC was responsible for military and security cooperation on the ground with the primary goal of controlling the emerging armed opposition groups in the forms of rebels. As the highest-level security agency until 2012, the CCMC reported their findings directly to Assad himself, to which they were then filtered down to additional stakeholders. Meanwhile, the NSB had a more intelligence focused role, acting as a direct communication line with the four key intelligence agencies. This crucial link allowed the NSB to act as the central agency that regulated the flow of real time information from on the ground all the way up to Assad. Second to the CCMC and NSB were the Security Committees, playing a key role in the creation of arrest and wanted lists to be passed down the chain of command. These committees consisted of crucial members from every governmental level, including commanders from the military, police and the heads of the four intelligence agencies.
Following the increase in protests in 2011, cooperation and reporting between the CCMC, NSB and Security Committees was expanded, appointing military commanders as heads of various committees. These new positions granted a monopoly over respected governorates, allowing single commanders to have unilateral authority over the security of their own jurisdiction, unless directed otherwise. With this new authority in place, detention facilities under the four intelligence agencies began operating with the intent to torture and coerce their critics. The four intelligence agencies – The Military Intelligence Department, Air Force Intelligence Directorate, General Intelligence Directorate and the Political Security Department operated 33, 16, 16 and 14 detention centers respectively, with additional makeshift detention centers not being accounted for. With the crucial role of handling the incarceration and torture of Assad’s critics, each agency reported directly to Damascus through their central branches alongside their commanders for each governorate.
Treatment in Syrian Government detention
Since 2011, extreme violence and torture had been committed under the watch of Assad. Beatings, electrocution, cold exposure and sexual violence ranked among the highest reported incidents. Upon arrival, new detainees were exposed to the “Welcome Party” by prison officials, consisting of various physical attacks designed to ensure they submitted immediately. Interrogation typically followed suit, being accompanied by further violence. Witnesses reported broken bones and teeth during interrogation as they were falsely accused of being conspirators against the Assad regime, often with no evidence. Prison officials showed no regard for the characteristics of those they attacked, often targeting children simply due to their age, alongside attacking patients recovering from injuries in Tishreen military hospital, demonstrating they viewed everyone detained as equally worthy of ill-treatment.
Sexual violence was highly prevalent during detention, something unfortunately all too common during conflict. Forced nudity, intrusive searches and sexual assault were typical in detention facilities for both male and female detainees. Forced nudity caused major health concerns during the harsh winters as detainees were left in freezing cold prison cells with little to no clothes to protect them from the extreme cold, resulting in at least one death due to cold exposure. While there were moderate reports of sexual touching/assault, rape appears to be under reported by witnesses, potentially due to stigma. A total of 11 cases of rape were reported, 8 male and 3 female, from hundreds of witnesses. This is abnormally low, especially as rape/sexual assault usually represents a much greater proportion of violations.
Alongside physical assaults are mental duress due to the treatment. Forced confessions, threats of violence and solitary confinement are ranked among the most frequent reports of duress. Witnesses reported a constant state of fear when incarcerated, citing the screams of torture echoing through the hallways and recognizing that many people who went to be tortured never returned. The effects of sexual violence caused a lasting impact on the victims, particularly as it was conducted in the presence of third parties. After conduction, many female witnesses claimed to feel coerced into sexual exploitation and favors due to threats of solitary confinement if they didn’t submit. Witnesses also cited verbal assaults and discrimination as causing psychological stress during incarceration, focusing on religious, ethnic and gender specific insults. In particular, the concept of honor was a focal point for prison officials, claiming female inmates were participating in sexual jihad, something extremely frowned upon in traditional Islamic households in the region.
Both physical and mental long term side effects were reported by 120 witnesses. Many witnesses were left with scarring, bruises and even physical disabilities that require ongoing treatment. Consequences from the physical assaults extend even further with joint pain due to stress positions, impaired vision and even heart conditions. Issues stemming from sexual violence are equally troubling with many having permanent disfigurement, infertility and dysfunction. Collectively, the combination of these issues results in deep psychological trauma that many are still dealing with following their release. 89 witnesses reported some form of long-lasting psychological issues, from the sudden development of social anxiety, suicidal ideation and self-harm to diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder.
As the transfer of governmental power emerges, the role played by non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in detention centers must also be highlighted.
While detention conditions under Assad have ceased due to the new transitional government, concerns from the past now become concerns for the future, particularly as HTS has a similarly troubled history of mistreatment when detaining people.
When HTS grappled for control of Aleppo, Hama and Idlib in 2017, they gained de facto authority within the regions, acting under the Syrian Salvation Government. This authority contained your typical government-like structure, crucially creating 11 ministries covering everything from economics to legislation, including a Ministry of Justice to oversee the detention facilities. Detention centers and prisons previously controlled by Assad now belonged to HTS. New centers were built alongside existing ones, allowing HTS to expand the previously minute prison system into an entire network in a short timeframe. This prison network became known as ‘Ouqab’, translating to ‘punishment’, eventually being used to inflict torture upon their captives. While HTS focused on expansion of this network, it wasn’t all exploitive in similar ways across the board, leading to only a small number of prisons being designated as torture prisons with prisons in Idlib and Harem being the most notorious in the network.
In these prisons, detainees were subject to beatings, sexual torture/violence, solitary confinement, general violence and the denial of medical treatment. The overcrowded and unhygienic cells quickly caused collateral issues, allowing for the spread of disease among the prison population. In total, 266 witnesses claimed to either have been tortured or witnessed some form of torture during their time in prison. Torture was often gender based, with women being subjected to sexual violence and rape at higher rates than men, including humiliation tactics designed to ensure detainees did not challenge authority. Unfortunately, many were never released from detention as incommunicado detention became a common tactic employed by HTS. Familial enquiries into the whereabouts of family members were met with hostility or no answer at all, leaving many detainees secretly transferred from one facility to the next to avoid detection.
Treatment by other NSAGs
ISIL/S are similarly guilty of detention-based crimes. During their full emergence in 2014, a campaign of targeting dissenters, political opponents and other armed groups began. Detainees were typically held in taken over or makeshift facilities formed out of discontinued civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and schools. As ISIL/S expanded, they began systematically targeting anyone who objected to their claims over territories. ISIL/S’s aspirations as an extremist organization focused on minorities from various ethnic, religious and ideological backgrounds. Detainees cited inhuman treatment at the hands of ISIL/S members including beatings, electrocution and whipping as primary torture methods. In total, 543 former detainees reported being subject to torture and ill-treatment or witness such events between 2014-2021.
Emerging as an umbrella group for soldiers defecting from Bashar al-Assad’s forces, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) united against oppressive government practices. The FSA destabilized from a centralized network into smaller groups that eventually resulted in differing practices among these groups. This fragmentation eventually led to detention-related practices being committed by subgroups such as Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham post 2011. A steady number of enforced disappearances and incommunicado detentions kept emerging up till 2021. In total, 114 testimonies from former detainees and witnesses detailed accounts of torture and mistreatment, revealing a systemic pattern of coercion. As with ISIL prisons, conditions in FSA facilities were similarly dire, being characterized by overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, and insufficient food or medical care. Captured government soldiers and rival group fighters faced executions frequently conducted by makeshift courts as a method of eliminating opposition. These courts, often led by local military or religious leaders, lacked legitimacy and due process that denied many of those convicted their judicial rights.
The Syrian National Army (SNA), a combination of various other factions, also plays a role in detention-based torture. Primarily operating out of Afrin, the SNA systematically captured and tortured Yazidi and Kurdish ethnic minorities for political and economic gain. In October 2019, the Turkish Armed Forces and SNA launched Operation Peace Spring in northern Syria, similarly targeting terrorist organization Daesh. Detainees were interrogated about alleged affiliations operating in contrast to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), a coalition power formed of the SNA and Turkish forces. Afrin Central Prison became the hub for the SNA, forcing civilians into overcrowded cells where they were routinely interrogated, assaulted and sometimes killed. While Afrin acted as the central hub for this torture, further facilities in Sultan Murad, Al-Hamza and Al-Shami were implicated for similar violations, showing a vast network of harmful facilities.
Conclusion
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the rise of a transitional government signals a pivotal shift in Syrian history, but the damage left by decades of systemic oppression and violence will take far longer to repair. While the transitional government presents an opportunity for progress, the presence of groups like HST, with their own history of abuses, raises concerns about the continuity of these oppressive practices. Syria risks trading one form of tyranny for another as the legacy of torture, enforced disappearances, and inhumane detention practices under both state and non-state actors have the potential to carry on.
Image: Sednaya prison after the Fall of Assad in 2024 (Source: VOA/Public Domain)
