A former prisoner in one of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s prisons has revealed how he saw a boy crying for his mother as he was sexually abused by his torturers.
Rene, one of six million Syrians who fled the country after the brutal civil war in 2012, was jailed for being gay and for going to pro-democracy protests by Assad’s secret police.
He said that while in prison he saw a boy no older than 16 being raped by Assad’s guards.
René told the BBC: ‘There was a boy. He was 15 or 16 years old. They were raping him and he called his mother. He said, ‘Mom… my mom… Mom.’
René himself was also raped, by three guards who laughed when he begged for mercy.
‘No one heard me. I was alone,” he recalled in 2012.
He said he was abused by the same guard every time for six months.
The former prisoner said memories of his time in the horrific prison system came back to him when he saw the large group of prisoners who left Damascus after Assad fell.
An aerial view of the Sednaya military prison after armed groups opposing the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad took control of Damascus
A view of dead bodies, tortured to death, at Al-Mujtahid Hospital as teams conduct investigations in secret compartments of Sednaya Prison after the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, Syria on December 10, 2024
‘I’m not in prison now, I’m here. But I saw myself in the photos and images of the people in Syria. “I was so happy for them, but I could see myself standing there,” he said.
‘I saw the old version of me there. I saw when they raped me and when they tortured me. I saw everything in flashback.’
Since Assad’s fall, conditions in the prisons he led have been revealed in detail for the first time.
The infamous Sednaya Prison near Damascus, nicknamed the ‘Human Slaughterhouse’, was the epicenter of this systematic terror, with large numbers of prisoners subjected to all kinds of inhumane treatment and executed.
Rebel fighters were thrown into prisons along with intellectuals, activists and ordinary citizens – all subjected to horrific treatment, in many cases for decades.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights claims that more than 157,000 people remain arrested or forcibly disappeared since the start of the Syrian revolution in March 2011 – including 5,274 children and 10,221 women.
It is said that more than 15,000 people died under torture during that time.
The network also documented 72 different methods of torture by the regime, including electrocuting genitals or hanging weights from them; burning with oil, metal rods, gunpowder or flammable pesticides; crushing heads between a wall and the prison cell door, and inserting needles or metal pins into bodies.
A view of dead bodies, tortured to death, at Al-Mujtahid Hospital as teams conduct investigations in secret compartments of Sednaya Prison after the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, Syria on December 10, 2024
A look at dead bodies tortured to death at Harasta Military Hospital as teams investigate secret compartments of Sednaya Prison
It is believed that this ‘iron press’ was used to crush, torture and execute prisoners
For most detainees, the horror began immediately after their arrest, often with severe beatings en route to detention centers.
Prisoners were subjected to brutal ‘welcome parties’, during which they were beaten with hoses, silicone rods and wooden sticks.
Survivors have described being hung by the wrists for hours, given electric shocks and burned with cigarettes, in horrific accounts to the New York Times and Amnesty International.
Once trapped behind bars, prisoners were soon introduced to all kinds of new torture methods, some of which were so infamous that they had been given a dark name.
One such grotesque device, nicknamed the “magic carpet,” involved chaining prisoners to a plank tied to a flexible plank divided in half by metal chain hinges.
Guards would then lift the bottom half of the board and fold the prisoner’s legs back, slowly and excruciatingly pressing them into gruesome positions.
Another such torture tactic was called the ‘dulab’, in which the victims’ bodies were contorted into a rubber band, their heads pressed against their knees, before being rolled around and beaten mercilessly.
Many guards are said to have enjoyed committing such atrocities.
Prisoners were often required to perform macabre and humiliating performances, forcing them to imitate animals – dogs, donkeys and cats – and being beaten for every misstep.