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Mohammad Rasoulof: Prison, politics and his Oscar-nominated film. Justice for Syria's rape victims is vital if Syria is to recover. This is Part 2 of a four-part series by Shahira Salloum, managing editor of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, reflecting on her January trip to Syria following the Assad regime's collapse, where she spoke with locals about the dramatic changes underway in the country. Click here for Part 1 and stay tuned for Part 3 which will come out next week. Warning: This article contains details of sexual violence against women and children that readers may find upsetting.
At the gates of Assad's prisons , humanity perished. Words fail to capture the depths of the cruelty, subjugation and torture that occurred within these walls — hints of the pitiless oppression still visible, where desperate pleas mourning the agony and the degradation are carved into the stone, as are the cries out to God for mercy.
If terror and injustice had a smell, colour, sound, shape, and features, they would surely be found here. In the hundreds of tattered blankets strewn across the cell floors, you get an indication of the large number of prisoners who would have been crammed into these narrow spaces of just a few metres. In the solitary confinement cells, which measure no more than one metre in width, under two metres in length, and 1. Entombed in these oppressive vaults of concrete and darkness, a prisoner might endure months, even years, swallowed by isolation.
The brutal horrors of Assad's prisons and the gruesome torture methods employed within them have been fully exposed to the world, a fact that can be credited to the new leadership which is eager to uncover the extent of the fallen regime's criminality before the media. Assad regime torture whistleblower Caesar named as Farid Madhhan. As one of my colleagues says, as we observe the scenes in front of us: "We knew, but now we see — and witnessing the crime with our own eyes is terrifying.
