Ali Al-Abdallah: My Experience in Syrian Regime Prisons
“Dreams were rare in detention; nightmares dominated, especially for those subjected to torture.”
Chapter One
The Assad regime imprisoned me many times for varying durations. The first time was in 1994 upon my return from the Republic of Tunisia, where I was working at the Palestinian Planning Center, which was affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization. I was detained at Damascus International Airport by an Air Force Intelligence patrol that monitors the movement of travelers entering and exiting the country. I was transferred to the investigation branch at the Mezzeh Military Airport and then to the Palestine Branch, where I spent six months. The country was experiencing heightened security measures to prevent any signs of opposition following the death of Bassel, the eldest son of the president, Hafez al-Assad, in a car accident. This event disrupted the preparations that were underway to groom Bassel for succession.
The second time I was detained was in June 2005 at the Political Security Investigation Branch. This was because I had read out loud a letter sent by the General Supervisor of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Ali Sadr al-Din al-Bayanouni, to one of the sessions of the Jamal Atassi Forum for National Democratic Dialogue. Again, I spent six months in prison, this time in the second wing designated for political prisoners at Damascus Central Prison in Adra.
This was the end of the so-called “Damascus Spring”. The country was reeling from the realization that Bashar al-Assad’s promises of reform were false, and that the arrests and trials of opposition figures in the notorious Supreme State Security Court had resumed. The situation was tense and sensitive. The Damascus Spring still had some momentum. Discussion forums had proliferated, and the Committees for the Revival of Civil Society had emerged as a driving force pressuring the regime to accept change. Opposition youth were boldly challenging the regime by gathering in front of the Supreme State Security Court to show solidarity with detainees during their court appearances. Meanwhile, Detlev Mehlis’ investigations into the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri were underway, preparations for the fifth Baath Party conference were in progress, and the authorities were attempting to convey the impression of a new political direction that would be approved by the conference. They also suggested involving opposition figures in discussions about existing problems and possible reforms.
BBC Arabic played a role in promoting these reform promises by holding open dialogue sessions on problems and solutions in a hall at the Cham Hotel in Damascus. I attended one of these sessions shortly before my arrest.
On the first night in prison, I heard people talking in the adjacent rooms. I later learned that other Damascus Spring activists were held in rooms along the same corridor, including lawyer Habib Issa, physician Walid al-Bunni, and engineer Fawwaz Tello. Later, Mr. Riyad Darar was brought in as well. Four Salafists were placed in the room opposite mine. One of them, who appeared to be their leader, asked me—after overhearing my conversation with the jailer—whether I was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I denied this, adding that I was an advocate for democracy. He cut the conversation short, saying, “We’ll talk later.” That “later” never came.
The next morning, I heard from the adjacent room, where Walid al-Bunni was detained, a radio playing the Monte Carlo and BBC Arabic stations. I later learned from him that each detainee had been allowed to bring a radio into their cells after two years of imprisonment. About a week after that, I heard the name “Muhammad al-Abdallah” on the prison loudspeaker. I became anxious and tried to reach the high ventilation opening to see if the person being called was my son Muhammad, but I failed. More than two weeks later, I heard on the radio the news of the release of Muhammad al-Abdallah, the son of the detained writer Ali al-Abdallah. Al-Bunni later told me he had heard news of Muhammad’s arrest on his radio earlier but chose not to inform me so as to avoid upsetting me.
BBC Arabic, meanwhile, covered the ruling party’s conference, and reported the dismissal of the party’s old guard, including Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam and Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass. The radio volume was high enough that some of the criminal prisoners sitting in the courtyard under Walid’s room heard the news. One of them commented, “They deserve it; hopefully, they’ll bring them here.”
The third time I was detained was in April 2006. I was held at the State Security Intelligence. We had participated in a gathering outside the Supreme State Security Court to show solidarity with detainees from Otaiba and Qatana, where I lived. My son Muhammad was with me, and he witnessed a policeman pushing a woman carrying an infant who was one of the detainees’ relatives. Muhammad rebuked the policeman and loudly cursed the state of emergency that allowed such people to insult citizens. That same evening, we were both arrested at our home in Qatana. This resulted in us spending six months and twelve days between Sednaya Military Prison and Damascus Central Prison.
The fourth arrest was in December 2007, again by the State Security Intelligence. This time my offense was participation in the National Council Conference of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic National Change, as well as my election to its General Secretariat. I was sentenced, along with eleven other leading members of the Declaration, to two and a half years in prison, which I served at Damascus Central Prison in Adra.
The country was under pressure from the regime’s return to heavy-handed repression and an expansion of arrests, with an emphasis on portraying most detainees as dangerous Salafists. This narrative aimed to send a message to the West that the regime was threatened by extremist Salafist groups, thus easing the international pressure intensified by the Mehlis investigation into the assassination of Rafik al-Hariri.
Let me return to the first detention, in 1994. Following my arrival from Tunisia and my arrest at Damascus airport, I was transferred to the investigations branch at Mezzeh Military Airport. There, I was placed in an underground hall with several other people who were also awaiting interrogation. The hall contained only wooden benches, so I spent my first night sleeping on one of them. I remained seated there until the evening of the following day, without any food or water. I was then taken to an interrogation room where a junior investigator questioned me about my life and work with the PLO before sending me back to the hall. Later that evening, I was transferred to a branch of Military Intelligence, Branch 294. Upon reading the transfer letter, the on-duty officer referred to me as a “terrorist”. Hours later, I was moved again, this time to Branch 215, known as the Patrols Branch, where I spent the night on a floor covered with military blankets. The next morning, I was transferred yet again, now to Branch 235, which was also known as the notorious “Palestine Branch”. I was placed in an empty room and left standing for hours without anyone speaking to me. Later, I was taken to a basement and placed in a room labeled “Room 8”.
This was my first time in prison. Everything I knew about the prisons and torture methods of intelligence agencies came from political novels like Trees and the Assassination of Marzouq and East of the Mediterranean by Abdulrahman Munif. I felt emotionally frozen until I entered Room 8 and met some of the other detainees. I was able to talk with Palestinians and Kurds. I had prior social and political knowledge of both communities. From 1955 to 1970, I had lived in the city of Qamishli in al-Hasakah Province, where I learned to speak Kurdish. I had also spent seventeen years within the Palestinian community.
I was interrogated 25 days after my arrival at the Palestine Branch. I was not subjected to torture during the interrogation. In fact, the investigator told me in the first session: “If President Hafez al-Assad hadn’t ordered the cessation of torture, I would have broken your bones.” This statement both acknowledged the practice of torture and was untrue, as torture continued to be used on other detainees. Moreover, I was beaten during the third and fourth interrogations—punches to the face and stomach—because my answers displeased the investigator at Branch 265 of State Security Intelligence. He ordered one of the officers to beat me, and during the fourth interrogation, the beating perforated my right eardrum.
On my third detention I was transferred to Sednaya Military Prison. On the first evening, the prison director, Colonel Louay Yousef, summoned me to meet him. He offered me a cup of tea and asked why I opposed the government given we had a young president. I replied, “Our disagreement isn’t about his youth but about the policies he implements.” In subsequent imprisonments, I was relatively more at ease because I was entering a world I already knew and understood.
Ali Al-Abdallah in the Military Court in Damascus in 2006 (Author’s Archive)
Chapter Two
Yes, prisoners were subjected to various forms of torture. During my detentions, I witnessed people being tortured: some were whipped with electric cables on their backs and limbs; others were beaten on their feet after being placed in the “tire” position; and some were suspended for hours in the “shabeh” position, where handcuffs are used to hang the detainee so their toes barely touch the floor. Others were placed in the “German chair”, a device designed to bend the detainee backward, causing excruciating spinal pain.
One Jordanian Kurdish detainee was taken to interrogation on foot and returned crawling because his feet were swollen from severe beating. Another Kurdish youth told me they had inserted a stick into his rectum. In addition, we frequently heard the screams of other detainees being tortured in nearby rooms. There was a room for women prisoners in the corridor. Through a hole in the iron door, we saw night-shift guards take a young woman out, kiss her, and grope her breasts and genitals. When they moved out of sight, we could only speculate on the extent of their assault.
Every interrogator was accompanied by officers equipped with electric cables, batons, handcuffs, tires, or the German chair. They were ready to use these tools at the investigator’s discretion.
During my third imprisonment, at the State Security Detention Center, I was taken to a basement where my clothes were aggressively searched before I was placed in a cell barely 50 cm wide and 180 cm long. Hours later, I was moved to a slightly larger cell in another basement. A few hours after that, an officer brought me a handwritten note stating, “I agree to cooperate with the intelligence service.” When I refused to sign it, he asked, “Don’t you want to serve your country?” I replied, “Yes, but not like this.”
The next day, I was blindfolded and transferred to Sednaya Military Prison. A military policeman, who might or might not have held a rank, received me and asked why I had been arrested. I said I was an advocate for democracy. He mockingly replied, “Blood-crazy democracy.” They took me blindfolded to a basement two floors underground and put me in a cell. Once inside, the guard removed my blindfold and warned, “Any noise or sound, and you’ll be beaten.”
The cell was 80 cm wide and 160 cm long, with a toilet chair in one corner. There was no lighting; only a faint light came through a small opening in the upper part of the iron door. Meals were delivered in plastic containers slid under the door. I spent 18 days in this cell before being moved to a larger room with a kitchen, bathroom, and independent toilet. The room had a wide door that spanned its width. They instructed me to stand facing the wall whenever the door was opened—a deliberate humiliation to assert that I was unworthy of seeing whoever entered, regardless of their rank.
A young military policeman, seemingly on mandatory service, once ordered me to clean the room, bathroom walls, and kitchen. He threatened to put me in the “tire” and beat me if I didn’t comply.
After 25 days, I was presented to Elias Najmeh, an investigative judge at the Supreme State Security Court. He was polite and told me he would consider my case a misdemeanor, carrying a sentence of no more than six months. He then informed me that my son Muhammad was implicated in the same case and was there for questioning. After he interrogated Muhammad, the judge allowed us to speak briefly. Muhammad broke into tears because the judge had told him he was the reason for my arrest. I calmed him down. The judge said we could request the prison director to place us in the same cell, and he approved this after I had requested it.
After 55 days, we were told to prepare for our release. In the room where they stored our belongings, a soldier mistakenly handed Muhammad items belonging to my other son, Omar, who had been arrested days before we had by Air Force Intelligence. This was because Omar had participated in a student group called “Youth for Syria”. Omar was sentenced to five years in Sednaya Prison, where he witnessed the 2008 riots that claimed dozens of lives.
This soldier’s mistake revealed that Omar was detained in Sednaya, which the Supreme State Security Court had refused to disclose. It also clarified a conversation I’d had with a police sergeant days after my arrival at the prison. He had asked about my family and promised to help ease my expenses by placing me in a room with affluent detainees. He knew about Omar and Muhammad’s presence in the prison, but I did not. I only understood his words after my reunion with Muhammad in court and the belongings mix-up.
Many forms of psychological torture were practised in the regime’s prisons. Upon my arrival at the Palestine Branch, I was made to stand in an empty room for hours without anyone speaking to me. When detainees were taken to interrogation, they were made to pick a wet blindfold from a container of water-soaked tire rubber straps. These clung to the face and completely obscured vision. The jailer would then lead the detainee by the hand, causing him to bump into walls or trip over thresholds.
During interrogations, you couldn’t anticipate where the next blow would land. In my second detention, I was only allowed to drink hot water from a rooftop tank exposed to the summer sun. This lasted for over two months before I was permitted to access normal water. In Sednaya, I was once allowed to buy a can of tuna, only to find it needed a can opener. When I asked a guard for help, he opened the door slightly, instructed me to place the can on the floor, and dragged it out with his foot. He returned with the can opened but made sure to assert control even in this trivial act.
Discrimination between the detainees was a constant, with treatment and torture varying based on political affiliation. During my second imprisonment, when I spent six months in the second wing of Damascus Central Prison – Adra, the Damascus Spring detainees—Habib Issa, Walid al-Bunni, Fawwaz Tello, and myself, followed later by Riyad Darar—were each held in small cells of four square meters. In contrast, the room across from mine, identical in size, housed four Salafists.
They were denied visits and access to the prison store for supplies, while we were allowed to purchase canned goods and cleaning products. During my third imprisonment in Sednaya Military Prison, I often heard numerous voices coming from the room adjacent to mine, indicating overcrowding. One night, the prison director visited that room and loudly addressed some of its occupants, saying, “There’s a secularist among you; why haven’t you slaughtered him yet?” Based on this, I realized the room housed individuals with mixed political affiliations and that the prison director was inciting the detainees against one another.
Chapter Three
It is impossible to provide a complete description of the prison; I can only describe what I personally experienced. The prison was a massive building with multiple levels. The upper floors were designated for administration and interrogation, while the underground levels contained group cells and solitary confinement cells. During my first imprisonment in the Palestine Branch, I was placed in Room 8, which was no more than seven square meters. A third of the space was partitioned off as a bathroom and toilet. A small window fitted with a ventilator allowed air to circulate, countering the humidity and cigarette smoke. The room held 57 prisoners, their bodies pressed tightly together.
A detainee appointed as the “head of the cell”, known as the shawish, was responsible for recording the names of new arrivals and assigning them seating and sleeping spots based on seniority. The rotation started from the bathroom door, and everyone shifted positions when detainees left, making room for new arrivals. The area near the bathroom reeked of foul odors and moisture. The bathroom itself had no door, and the water tap leaked continuously onto the tiles, with drops splashing beyond the bathroom’s confines.
At night, the shawish organized the rows for sleeping. Prisoners slept on their sides, their bodies tightly aligned, a practice known as taseef (lining up like swords). Even after optimizing the space in this way, some detainees were left without room to lie down and had to spend the night standing from 10 PM, the mandatory sleeping time, until 6 AM, when everyone had to rise. These individuals, referred to as sahheers (night standers), were given space to sleep in the morning after breakfast. When detainees were released, the rows adjusted to fill the vacated spaces, but the relief was short-lived as new detainees quickly arrived.
Breakfast typically consisted of a spoonful of halva, jam, or labneh, a few olives, or a boiled egg served with a piece of bread. Lunch was prepared in the kitchen of a nearby military unit and brought to the prison. It usually consisted of a watery stew of potatoes, eggplants, or beans with rice. The potatoes and eggplants were unpeeled, and the beans were scarce, floating in a sea of flavorless broth. Occasionally, there would be third-grade grapes or apples. Detainees adapted these meager offerings by discarding the broth and mashing the potatoes with salt and oil or seasoning the eggplants with tahini, salt, and oil purchased from the prison canteen. Dinner was often boiled potatoes. On rare occasions, lunch included chicken and rice, though the rice was usually undercooked, and each detainee received only a few grams of meat.
When food arrived, one person distributed it among groups of detainees, known as sofras, who shared their plates. This process often resulted in noisy disputes over perceived unfair portions or differences in quality. The distributor was rotated frequently to address complaints.
The water was too cold for bathing, but detainees devised a method to heat it. They used metal lids from cans, separated by a wooden insulator and connected with strings pulled from blankets. Each lid was attached to a wire connected to an electrical source. The contraption was submerged in a plastic container of water, heating it for use.
When detainees arrived, their belongings (money, gold, wallets) were confiscated and stored in the prison’s custody room, only to gradually disappear. Each shift of guards would take whatever items they found valuable. Money was stolen in another way: detainees were allowed to purchase goods from the prison store once a week, including cigarettes, dry foods like halva and tahini, oil, thyme, and cleaning products. After one or two purchases, detainees would be informed that their funds were depleted, regardless of the actual amount. Worse, guards would later come around demanding cigarettes, oil, thyme, or other items, and those who refused would be beaten for fabricated charges. Consequently, many of the purchased goods ended up with the guards.
In the State Security Detention Center, food deliveries from an external military unit were routinely looted. Guards would gather around the delivery vehicle and take the best items, especially chicken when it was on the menu, leaving wings, necks, and backs—mostly bones with little meat—for the detainees. Fruits like grapes or apples were similarly pilfered.
At the Palestine Branch, detainees were occasionally taken to the corridor to have their hair trimmed with an electric clipper, a crude process that barely qualified as a haircut. Access to fresh air was prohibited in intelligence prisons and Sednaya Military Prison, allowed only in Damascus Central Prison. Reading and entertainment were also forbidden, with inspections conducted to confiscate any games or tools.
Most guards were semi-literate and treated detainees as personal enemies, intentionally humiliating and exploiting them. In my cell, there was an elderly Lebanese man, a member of the Iraqi wing of the Baath Party, who talked a lot. One day, a guard called him out and slapped him hard across the face, warning him that if he heard his voice again, the punishment would be severe.
In Branch 265 of State Security, detainees were only allowed to use the bathroom once in the morning and once in the evening. For emergencies, diabetic prisoners were given a bottle to urinate in. Visits were prohibited in intelligence prisons but allowed once a month in Sednaya Military Prison, only after the detainee was sentenced. In Damascus Central Prison, visits were permitted once a week after the investigation phase concluded.
Detainees at the Palestine Branch were a mix of Syrians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Jordanians, and Kurds, detained for various reasons. These ranged from human smuggling, currency and weapons trafficking, and antiquities theft, to fraudulent activities and border-crossing attempts—primarily criminal offenses outside the jurisdiction of Military Intelligence, which is tasked with protecting the army from external infiltration. Among the detainees were Syrian members of the Iraqi Baath Party, Palestinians affiliated with Yasser Arafat’s faction, Kurds from various Kurdish parties, Lebanese from groups opposing the Syrian presence in Lebanon, and Jordanians who had purchased large quantities of foreign cigarettes at the Arida border crossing between Syria and Lebanon.
I encountered a particularly unfortunate and painful case during my time there. It involved a Jordanian from Ramtha, a town on the Syrian-Jordanian border, who worked as a driver on the Amman-Damascus route. He arrived in Damascus on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, believing that the holiday and accompanying vacation would ease surveillance. He headed to the Arida area near the Syrian-Lebanese border, a hub for smuggling, where he purchased 20 cartons of foreign cigarettes—Kent, Marlboro, and Pall Mall. He was stopped by Military Intelligence agents who began extorting him. Hoping to placate them, he invited them to a restaurant and treated them to a lavish lunch with some bottles of beer. Feeling he had gained their favor, he asked if he could purchase a pistol. They replied ambiguously, saying, “We don’t know. Ask around, and if you find one, buy it.” They left, but sent other agents to claim their share of the spoils. When the man resisted further extortion, he was arrested and sent to the Palestine Branch on charges of attempting to purchase weapons.
At the Palestine Branch, he endured severe beatings at frequent intervals. This is the same detainee I mentioned earlier, who would go to interrogation on foot and return crawling due to the swelling in his feet from repeated beatings on their soles.
Regarding health issues, diarrhea and scabies were the most prevalent diseases. Diarrhea was treated with a single or multiple doses of medication, and scabies with benzyl benzoate, the cost of which the patient had to cover. If a detainee lacked funds, others who could afford it would contribute. Lice, however, were ignored entirely, with no measures taken to address them.
Dreams were rare in detention; nightmares dominated, especially for those subjected to torture. The Jordanian detainee I described, for instance, would mumble incoherently in his sleep.
Chapter Four
During my first imprisonment, I remained in detention for a long time after the investigation had concluded, unsure of my fate. The branch had the authority to issue sentences and carry them out within its own prison. The investigator explicitly told me, “We won’t release you until someone who knows you comes forward.” I didn’t understand what he meant until a friend of mine came, paid them a sum of money, and secured my release. In the final session, I wasn’t required to wear a blindfold. I met the investigator, who was accompanied by another person who appeared to outrank him. This man told me, “You gave us a hard time until we learned what we needed from you,” and escorted me to the sixth floor, where I was released.
During my second imprisonment, I was released as a result of a presidential pardon. Muhammad Ra’doun and I were transferred to the headquarters of the Political Security Division, where we each separately met its director at the time, Major General Muhammad Mansoura. After some comments about patriotism and praise for our national loyalty, he informed us of the pardon and that we would be going home. That’s exactly what happened. We were taken back to the second wing to collect our belongings. There, the head of the Political Security branch in the prison, Major Ammar, told me, “I don’t want to see you here again.”
In the third experience, Muhammad and I exceeded our sentence by twelve days. When the judge issued the sentence—six months and a fine of 100 lira each—he waived the fine in lieu of the extra time we had served. However, the on-duty assistant at the prison, where we were being released in the evening, insisted on collecting the fine. I told him I wouldn’t pay. He took us to the on-duty officer, and I explained that the judge had exempted us from the fine, but the assistant was insisting on collecting it. After reading the judge’s ruling, the officer released us.
In my final imprisonment, I was released through another presidential pardon. This followed the outbreak of the 2011 Revolution for Freedom and Dignity. At the time, I still had a year and a half remaining of my sentence, which had been issued by the Military Criminal Court while I was already in prison. This sentence was due to a commentary I had written from inside the prison condemning the fraudulent Iranian presidential election of 2009, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a second term. In the commentary, I criticized the Iranian regime for its manipulation of the people’s will. Prior to this, I had served a two-and-a-half-year sentence for participating in the National Council Conference of the Damascus Declaration.
Upon release, I wasn’t freed directly from prison. Instead, I was transferred to the branch that had arrested me in 2007—State Security Branch 265—where I remained for a few days under the pretext of meeting Major General Ali Mamlouk, the division’s director at the time. However, the meeting never took place, and I was released after three more days.
Leadership of the Damascus Declaration at the Criminal Court in Damascus in 2008 (Author’s Archive)
The Writer
A political activist who was initially imprisoned in the Assad regime’s prisons in Syria several times for short periods, totaling six months. In his last arrest, he was sentenced to two and a half years and was incarcerated from 2007 to 2009. He was held in many of Syria’s main prisons, including the Investigation Branch at Mezzeh Airport, the Palestine Branch, the Military Prison in Damascus, Adra Prison, State Security Intelligence Prison, Sednaya Prison, and Central Damascus Prison. Throughout his incarceration, he witnessed the treatment of prisoners and the psychological and physical torture methods employed in these facilities. Notably, he was detained alongside his two sons: Mohammad, who was imprisoned with him, and Omar, who was held in Sednaya Prison.