The official spokesman for the Syrian Human Rights Committee said today:” the massacre of Sednaya prison is an undisputable truth, and because the Syrian authorities were unable to deny it, they resorted in their official statement –which was no longer than three lines- to distort the facts with invalid allegations. They do not dare to disclose the nature of their savage treatment against the political detainees, but rather connected what had happened with (prisoners sentenced with crimes of extremism and terrorism) to free themselves from the responsibilities of mistreating and badly torturing the political detainees. The authorities apparently aim to legalise the killing of the defenceless political detainees in order to achieve a stamp of approval from certain external sides.
The spokesman continued to explain that the regime of president Bashar al-Asad wants to get rid of the Islamic detainees, who constitute 90% of the total number of the political detainees in Syria, in the same manner that his father got rid of them through the massacres in Tadmur and other prisons, which in similar circumstances was prevailed by doubtful international silence that served to bring about new dealings and accords with the Syrian regime. Therefore, all analysis points to the beginning of a deliberate massacre against the increasing number of the defenceless Islamic political detainees, simultaneously tightening the grip on other political detainees and causing tension throughout the country in order to bring about external dealings.
The official spokesman confirmed that scores of victims were killed and wounded as a result of the massacre, which was confirmed by live eyewitnesses from inside Sednaya prison who conveyed this to SHRC, human rights activists Mohammed al-Abdullah, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Arabic BBC and Elaph website as well as other human rights activists inside and outside Syria along with the relatives of some detainees. All the witnesses stated the names of the first group of victims who had been gunned down by the Syrian Military Police force.”
The spokesman added that “ ambulances were seen until late last night transferring the victims and casualties to Tishrin Military Hospital in Harasta suburb, and that the hospital closed its doors to patients and visitors. Some relatives of Sednaya Detainees confirmed that they were denied access inside the hospital to inquire about their loved ones”.
The spokesman also confirmed that “more than 50 elderly men and women went yesterday to Sednaya prison to enquire about their sons, but they were not allowed to approach the prison from the distance of a few kilometres. The father of an Islamic detainee told SHRC in a telephone call that his car was stopped few kilometres away from the prison by a security patrol. He was abused with rude words and insults against him and his son. One of the patrol members told him: “were you younger, we would finish you in the same manner as your criminal son, but then you will be counted as a man. You are nothing.”
The spokesman condemned some of the regime’s staunch followers who tried to distort and cover up the massacre’s irrefutable facts of torture, mistreatments, cruelty and desecrating sacraments. He continued, saying, “Our people in Syria are familiar with the conduct of the security and intelligence apparatuses, their lack of good manners and respect of others’ rights whether they are free or detained, and we know the extent of their open shameless scorn of the sacraments… Therefore, it is he who described his regime with his own words”.
The spokesman warns of the horrific fact which awaits the detainees in Sednaya prison. “Tadmur Massacre was legalised by law 49/1980 which sentenced to death all members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and now the Sednaya Prison Massacre could be legalised by the authorities’ brief statement: “by compiling files of aggression on the others, damaging public properties in order to take the legal procedures against the perpetrators”. As a result, hundreds of Sednaya prison detainees could vanish forever as occurred to their predecessors among internal despotism and external neglect.
The official spokesman concluded his release by appealing to all who can help to disclose the details of the massacre and relaying them to our Syrian people and the world. He also appeals to the families of the detainees to show courage, unity and solidarity by appointing a committee to follow the fate of their loved ones in Sednaya and to identify their humane conditions.
Syrian Human Rights Committee
6/7/2008