DAESH freed / What is aimed at fabricating fictions on Syrian prisons?

Pars Today- One of the most important issues that are currently raised among media sources and social pages is related to the central prison in Damascus, called Sedanaya/Saydnaya, which was occupied and its inmates were all released in the early hours of December 8.

These days, Syria has turned into the focal point of the regional and global developments while, in a Hollywood approach, numerous videos and images, attributed to the prisons of the country, are published which are mostly fake and fabricated, in a bid to marginalize the crimes of terrorists and Westerners in Syria on the one hand, and provide the security sphere for continuation of occupation by Zionists, on the other.

In view of this, Iranian daily Siyasat, in a column titled, "Escape of US and Israel from the corridors of Syrian prisons", has taken a look at rumors which have been fabricated nowadays about this prison. What follows are parts of this article:

Where is Sedanaya prison?

Sedanaya prison is located 30km north of Damascus and was built in 1987. This prison has two sections and is constructed in a trigonal shape. The first section known as the "Red Building" included political and civilian inmates and the second section called the "White Building" was appropriated to military inmates.

This prison was run by the Syrian public security police affiliated to the defense ministry, and especially after the events of 2011 and upsurge of terrorist activities in the country, strict measures were taken against prisoners at high level. Some of the detainees report that they had been incarcerated in the prison for months without trial.

Although human rights organizations had claimed some misconducts with political prisoners in Syria even before 2011, but, according to the international reports and announcement of opposition groups in Syria, besides increase of the number of inmates in the major Syrian prisons, execution and torture of those who were mainly the members of terrorist groups, had been on the rise for the past decade.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced in January 2021 that approximately 30,000 people were incarcerated in this prison. This is while, more real reports had estimated the number of the inmates at 10-20 thousand. The Amnesty International, also, reported in February 2017 that in 2011-2015, i.e. after the onset of terrorist groups' activities in Syria, nearly 5-13 thousand inmates were executed in this prison.

Behind metaphysical fictions about torturing Syrian prisoners

Although misconduct is an undeniable reality in the Syrian prisons, a notable part of the current prisoners in Sedanaya are those who are likeminded with terrorist groups which have just come to power in Damascus. These persons, who were the members of DAESH and al-Nusra Front terrorist groups (the former version of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham), have committed a big number of crimes against civilians and various individuals in Syria since 2011. Many have seen their videos and images during the past decade and the Syrian people have very bitter memories from them.

In the heat of the change of the ruling system in Syria, however, some of the former inmates have embarked on magnifying the tortures in this prison and the existence of secret cells in it with varied aims such as highlighting their own activities and struggles against Bashar Assad government and grabbing a share of the cake of the new ruling system. Among the most important rumors is the existence of a secret door connecting the kitchen to a cellar leading to the Red Building comprising 10 floors underground with hundreds of prisoners!

These claims, which are more similar to fictions, are raised while the quest of civil defense forces have failed to find such places and the existence of such cells are basically denied.

Al-Arabiya channel is among the top media sources which publish fake and metaphysical news of what is called as "horrible tortures in the security prisons of Bashar Assad government". This Saudi-based channel has claimed on its facebook page that there are scores of stealthy prisons in Syria which have not been detected yet. Nevertheless, this issue has been denied even by the groups dominating Syria.

The reports of al-Arabiya on the issue are often released without any valid source or naming a single name of the whistleblower or their posts. This indicates that, instead of being originated in reality, al-Arabiya reports are prepared on the basis of propaganda hypes to make people busy with such news.

Hidden goals of releasing rumors

Although such rumors look natural in any sudden political change and public opinion in a country appears to be specially interested in knowing the behind-the-scene realities of the former ruling system, the current direction of dissemination of rumor in a big scale and the nature of the media dominating these activities reveal organized clandestine objectives in these attempts.

While the terrorists ruling Damascus have introduced themselves as "Islamist jihadi currents", they have shown no reaction, even verbally, to the military aggressions of the Zionist regime and do not, even implicitly, condemn the military presence of this regime which has advanced up to the vicinities of Damascus. Public opinion feels flagrant contradiction between the words and deeds of these groups. These conditions are seriously in need of forging propaganda hype to divert public opinion from the actions of Zionists.

Key phrases: Sedanaya prison, Israeli crimes, terrorist groups, forging rumors in Syria, Israel and terrorists   

RM/UR