‘I haven’t seen the sun until today,’ said a Syrian who was released from Assad’s prisons on the day of his execution.
Bashar Barhoum woke up in his prison cell in Damascus in the early hours of Sunday morning, thinking it would be the last day of his life.
The 63-year-old writer should have been executed after being imprisoned for seven months.
But he soon realized that the men at the door were not former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s bodyguards, ready to take him away and kill him. Instead, they were rebels who would free him.
As militants stormed Syria just 10 days from ending the Assad family’s more than 50-year rule, they broke into prisons and security facilities to free political prisoners and tens of thousands of people who have disappeared since the war broke out. it started back in 2011 or even earlier.
Barhoum was one of the freedmen who celebrated in Damascus.
“I haven’t seen the sun until today,” Barhoum told The Associated Press after walking in disbelief through the streets of Damascus. “Instead of me dying tomorrow, thank God, He gave me a new way of life.”
Barhoum couldn’t find his cell phone and belongings in prison, so he started looking for a way to tell his wife and daughters that he was safe and sound.
Videos widely shared on social media show dozens of prisoners running around in joy after the terrorists let them go, some barefoot and others in skimpy clothes. One of them cries with joy after finding out that the government has fallen.
Torture, killing and starvation
Syrian prisons had a bad reputation for their harsh conditions. Torture is a system, say human rights groups, torturers and ex-prisoners. Secret killings have been reported at more than a dozen sites run by Syrian intelligence, as well as other sites.
In 2013, a Syrian military rebel, known as “Caesar,” smuggled more than 53,000 photos that human rights groups say show clear evidence of widespread torture, but also disease and starvation, in Syrian prisons.
Syria’s feared security services and prisons have not only divided Assad’s opponents, but also instilled fear in his people, said Lina Khatib, fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at London think-tank Chatham House.
“The worry of being thrown into one of Assad’s notorious prisons created distrust among the Syrian people,” Khatib said. “Assad has fostered this culture of terror to control and eliminate political opposition.”
The Syrian government fell early Sunday morning. CBC’s Briar Stewart breaks down what happened and what it could mean for the future of the country and the conflicts in the Middle East.
Just north of Damascus at the Saydnaya military prison, known as the “killing house,” women prisoners, some with their children, screamed as men broke the locks on their doors. Amnesty International and other organizations say scores of people are being secretly killed each week in Saydnaya, estimating that 13,000 Syrians were killed between 2011 and 2016.
“Don’t be afraid … Bashar Assad has fallen! Why are you afraid?” said one of the rebels while trying to expel a large number of women from their small jam-packed cells.
Tens of thousands of prisoners have been released so far, said Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war against opposition groups based in Britain.
In the past 10 days, the insurgents have freed prisoners in cities including Aleppo, Homs and Hama, and Damascus.
Families anxiously await their relatives
Omar Alshogre, who was imprisoned for three years and survived endless torture, watched in shock from his home far away in Syria as videos showed dozens of prisoners escaping.
“A hundred democracies in the world have done nothing to help them, and now a few groups of soldiers are coming down and breaking open prison after prison,” Alshogre, a human rights lawyer who has lived in Sweden and the US, told the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, the families of the prisoners and the disappeared skipped the celebrations of the fall of the Assad dynasty. Instead, they wait outside prisons and security agencies, hoping that their loved ones will be there.
They expected a lot from the newcomers who are about to rule this defeated country.
“This joy will not end until I see my son out of prison and know where he is,” said Bassam Masri. “I have been looking for him for two hours. He has been imprisoned for 13 years.”
Rebels struggled to control the chaos as crowds gathered at the Damascus Court of Justice.
Heba, who only gave her name when she spoke to AP, said she was looking for her brother and sister-in-law who were arrested for reporting a stolen car in 2011, but so far they have not been seen.
“They took us so badly,” said Heba, her mother’s cousin, who also disappeared. “We don’t know anything about them … See [the Assad government] it burned our hearts.”
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