In this book : ‘Tadmur: Witnessed & Observed’, Muhammad Saleem Hammad recalls his 11-year horrific ordeal in the Syrian prisons which summarises the suffering and ordeal lived by many thousands of Syrian citizens under the dictatorship rule of Hafiz Al-Asad. The Syrian regime denied consistently the existence of conscience and political detainees in Syrian jails, […]
10. Death Due to Torture
In considerable cases torture leads to death, but the authorities do not acknowledge that. When the corpse of the detainee is handed over to his relatives they are told not to open the coffin and to burry it promptly, while the report of the prison’s doctor explains out the death as the result of a […]
11. Death Because of Shooting
During this period the use of live bullets increased to terrorise the citizens, some of whom were killed unjustifiably. On 22 September 2007, Abdul-Hadi Bistu was killed by the bullets of the police in Dummar in Rural Damascus, where he was present while the municipal labourers were demolishing an unlicensed house. The youth ‘Ammar Fandi […]
15. Restrictions on Media Freedoms
Mass media in Syria are restricted in respect of licensing and the freedom of publication. The authorities continue restricting licensing magazines, newspapers, TV channels and broadcasting stations. Official mass media are still dominant in all fields. As to the magazines, newspapers and TV channels that were instituted during the few past years, most of them […]
6. The Ordeal of the Returnees and Visitors
The returnees and visitors to Syria suffer from the risks of being detained, interrogated and tortured. They are easy victims to give information, be manipulated and be subjected to the financial corruption characterising the intelligence apparatus and the Syrian security authorities. We cite as examples the detention of Abdullah Abdul-Rahman al-Zu’bi from Dar’a Province, who […]
7. The Issue of Kurds
The crackdown on the Kurdish activists is going on in all its varieties: detention, presentation to exceptional and military courts, persistence in denying the rights of Kurds as citizens entitled to all their rights, denying their cultural and ethnical rights which the Regime awards to other ethnic groups living in Syria and suppressing any of […]
8. The Issue of Arbitrary Detention
Arbitrary detentions go on in Syria widely in villages, towns and cities, targeting whoever opposes the Regime and whoever is suspected of opposing it. In reality, the majority of arbitrary detentions do not have access to mass media and human organisations, particularly when the case is related to religious individuals, for they are secretly detained […]
3. Law No. 49
First: Rulings of the Supreme State Security Court The Syrian regime stepped up its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood Movement. The Supreme State Security Court continued sentencing to death all the detainees that had been subjected to trial on the charge of being members thereof, according to Law No. 49 of 1980 the first article […]
13. Supreme State Security Court
Supreme State Security Court (SSSC) is one of the most important devices of repression used by the security authorities. By virtue of law, the authorities are entitled to form more than one state security court and to set them up in various areas of the country. The state security court was formed to replace the […]
16. The Ordeal of Syrian Exiles in Iraq
Syrian exiles residing in Iraq since the early 1980s were exposed, during the period covered by the report, to major dangers that threatened their life and existence. They were targets for the Iraqi police, the armed militia close to them and the American forces. About 38 of them were killed after their being taken from […]