Government Thousands in Syria flock to prison after Assad's fall
After the fall of Bashar al-Assad, many people flocked to the notorious Saidnaya prison to search for relatives who had been imprisoned for years. As AFP journalists reported, thousands gathered outside the prison north of Damascus.
10.12.2024, 06:38
SDA
Meanwhile, the leader of the victorious Islamists, Mohammed al-Jolani, announced that he would publish a list of ex-officials involved in torture. He also met with the incumbent head of government, Mohammed al-Jalali, to discuss the transfer of power.
On site, 65-year-old Aida Taha said she had run "like a madwoman" to Saidnaya prison in search of her brother, who was arrested in 2012 - in the hope of finding him there. "The prison has three or four underground floors," she said. So far, the doors could not be opened because the appropriate access codes were missing. The aid organization Weisshelme had stated that they would search the prison for possible secret doors or cellars.
Prison stands for brutality
The Saidnaya prison symbolizes the brutality of the Assad family's decades-long rule. When Bashar al-Assad took office in 2000, he inherited an apparatus of prisons and detention centers from his late father Hafiz al-Assad, in which dissidents were locked away.
Hafiz al-Assad took power in the country in 1970 and the Assad clan ruled for almost five and a half decades. When Bashar al-Assad crushed pro-democracy protests in 2011, a civil war began that claimed the lives of half a million people and drove millions of Syrians to flee their homes.
The Islamist group Hajat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) then put an end to Assad's rule at the weekend, with the ruler fleeing to Russia according to Russian state media. The fighters had launched a surprise offensive in north-western Syria on November 27 and had advanced as far as the capital within a few days. The Islamists had announced that "all those unjustly imprisoned" would be released.
List of highest-ranking officials announced
On Monday, HTS leader al-Jolani announced on the online service Telegram that a list to be published by the future Syrian authorities would contain "the names of the highest-ranking officials involved in the torture of the Syrian people". "We will offer rewards to anyone who provides information about high-ranking army and security officers involved in war crimes."
Despite all the political uncertainties, large numbers of people once again celebrated in the streets of Damascus on Monday. On the central Umayyad Square, car horns sounded again and fighters fired shots of joy into the air.
The HTS, which leads the Assad opponents, emerged from the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian offshoot of the Al-Qaeda terror network, but says it has had no links to Al-Qaeda since 2016. Its leader al-Jolani presents himself as a moderate.
