HUMAN Torture Archipelago RIGHTS Arbitrary Arrests, Torture and Enforced Disappearances WATCH in Syria’s Underground Prisons since March 2011 Torture Archipelago Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria’s Underground Prisons since March 2011 Copyright © 2012 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 1-56432-906-2 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. We stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice. We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable. We challenge governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law. We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all. 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For more information, please visit our website: http://www.hrw.org JULY 2012 ISBN: 1-56432-906-2 Torture Archipelago Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria’s Underground Prisons since March 2011 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 1 Recommendations .............................................................................................................. 7 To the UN Security Council ........................................................................................................ 7 To All Countries ........................................................................................................................ 7 To the Arab League .................................................................................................................. 8 To Russia and China ................................................................................................................ 8 To the Syrian Government ........................................................................................................ 8 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 10 I. Arrest, Detention, and Torture in Syria .......................................................................... 12 Arbitrary Arrests and Unlawful Detention ........................................................................................ 12 Conditions in Detention ............................................................................................................... 14 Systematic Use of Torture and Deaths in Custody .............................................................................. 17 Detention and Torture of Children, Women and Elderly ....................................................................... 31 II. Syria’s Detention Facilities ........................................................................................... 35 Department of Military Intelligence .................................................................................. 36 Branch 291 – Damascus ......................................................................................................... 36 Branch 235 (“Palestine Branch”) – Damascus ......................................................................... 39 Branch 248 – Damascus ......................................................................................................... 42 Branch 227 – Damascus ......................................................................................................... 43 Branch 215 – Damascus .......................................................................................................... 44 Branch 245 – Daraa ................................................................................................................ 45 Aleppo Branch ........................................................................................................................ 47 Branch 271 – Idlib ................................................................................................................... 50 Homs Branch .......................................................................................................................... 52 Latakia Branch ....................................................................................................................... 54 Air Force Intelligence Directorate ...................................................................................... 56 Mezzeh Airport Branch – Damascus ........................................................................................ 56 Bab Touma Branch – Damascus .............................................................................................. 58 Daraa Branch .......................................................................................................................... 59 Homs branch ......................................................................................................................... 60 Latakia Branch ....................................................................................................................... 61 Political Security Directorate ............................................................................................ 63 Mezzeh area – Damascus ....................................................................................................... 63 Idlib Branch ........................................................................................................................... 64 Homs Branch ......................................................................................................................... 66 Latakia Branch ....................................................................................................................... 67 Daraa Branch ......................................................................................................................... 68 General Intelligence Directorate ....................................................................................... 69 Branch 285 – Damascus ........................................................................................................ 69 Al-Khattib Branch – Damascus ................................................................................................ 70 Latakia Branch ....................................................................................................................... 72 Aleppo Branch ........................................................................................................................ 72 Idlib Branch ............................................................................................................................ 73 Homs Branch .......................................................................................................................... 74 Ad Hoc and Joint Detention Facilities ................................................................................ 76 Central Prison – Idlib .............................................................................................................. 76 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 78 SUMMARY The guards hung me by my wrists from the ceiling for eight days. After a few days of hanging, being denied sleep, it felt like my brain stopped working. I was imagining things. My feet got swollen on the third day. I felt pain that I have never felt in my entire life. It was excruciating. I screamed that I needed to go to a hospital, but the guards just laughed at me. —Elias describing how he was tortured in Branch 285 of the Department of General Intelligence in Damascus Since the beginning of anti-government protests in March 2011, Syrian authorities have subjected tens of thousands of people to arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, enforced disappearances, ill-treatment, and torture using an extensive network of detention facilities, an archipelago of torture centers, scattered throughout Syria. Based on more than 200 interviews with former detainees, including women and children, and defectors from the Syrian military and intelligence agencies, this report focuses on 27 of these detention facilities. For each facility, most of them with cells and torture chambers and one or several underground floors, we provide the exact location, identify the agencies responsible for operating them, document the type of ill-treatment and torture used, and name, to the extent possible, the individuals running them. The facilities included in this report are those for which multiple witnesses have indicated the same location and provided detailed descriptions about the use of torture. The actual number of such facilities is likely much higher. In charge of Syria’s network of detention facilities are the country’s four main intelligence agencies, commonly referred to collectively as the mukhabarat: • the Department of Military Intelligence (Shu`bat al-Mukhabarat al-`Askariyya); • the Political Security Directorate (Idarat al-Amn al-Siyasi); •