Bashar al-Assad’s escape from Syria was not the only defining moment of his brutal regime’s collapse. Alongside it was the storming of his infamous detention centres—foremost among them Sednaya—and the liberation of those held captive within.
The story of the Syrian people under al-Assad’s dictatorship is, if anything, a tale of detention: the suppression of their will, opinions, aspirations, and even emotions. This repression culminated in its most severe and tangible form: their physical imprisonment and the unspeakable torment they endured in these human slaughterhouses.
As the rebels advanced and the prison doors swung open, they revealed the horrific practices conducted within, the names and numbers of detainees, and the grim details of their disappearances. Much was already known, but seeing it first-hand was truly shocking. These revelations did more than recount detainees’ suffering. They exposed the depth of the regime’s depravity and the world’s complicity, indifference, and silence that effectively enabled such atrocities to endure.
Just metres away
Syrians recalled images of tourists from around the world visiting Damascus and other cities, capturing carefree moments in al-Assad’s Syria, all while standing just metres away from infamous detention centres. Yet from its inception, the Assad regime constructed and operated the machinery needed for killing, torturing, and terrorising its own people.
The world now stands in shock at the sight of those emerging from these prisons. Some are unable to speak, move, or even recognise reality. Others have been robbed of their memory or sanity. Estimates may vary by source, but all agree the death toll is in the hundreds of thousands, with millions missing, displaced, exiled, or injured. Millions of others lived in fear, oppressed and uncertain of what the future might hold.
One video that surfaced following the storming of Sednaya— one of the most infamous prisons—shows, from the darkness, an emaciated woman sitting on a bed, shackles beside her, looking more spectre than human, confined in a solitary cell. This haunting image could easily have been drawn from the darkest pages of history.
The full extent of the horrors is still emerging. Experts believe tens of thousands were tortured here, many dying of their injuries or their subsequent neglect, including starvation. Some still believe that thousands more remain trapped in secret underground cells that have yet to be found. What is unmistakable is the terrifying picture these revelations paint, in all their monstrous clarity.
Pinnacle of savagery
In another video, we see perhaps one of the worst sights: the so-called ‘crusher,’ a diabolical iron device that executes by crushing. What kind of person could push the button or pull the lever to operate such an infernal machine?
What confronts us here is an atrocity at the pinnacle of human savagery. It represents a moment of absolute predation and dehumanisation, a case study in the extremities of brutality. It is almost too difficult to comprehend. The crimes defy comprehension or reason. They fit into no known logical framework.
The horrors perpetrated by the Assad regime stand in many ways unmatched even by the worst dictatorships. The Nazi atrocities were confined to a specific period, the Holocaust, which amplified their horrific intensity. This brutal mass extermination was executed with maximum efficiency, at maximum scale, in the shortest possible time.
Such extermination is evident in Israel's actions in Gaza, but what distinguishes the Assad regime is that it crafted parallel worlds of existence: one for leaders, loyalists, elites and beneficiaries, another for all other Syrians trying to make a living, and yet another for those marked for death, detention, torture, or disappearance for offences such as uttering the wrong word at the wrong time.
Imprisoned and predated
In effect, the entire Syrian population was imprisoned. This took myriad forms and degrees, its most extreme manifestation embodied by places like Sednaya. Yet outside the prison, Syrian citizens were only notionally free. Inside, they ceased to be citizens at all—or even people.
Entrenched psychopathy within the regime's structure bred thousands of psychopaths whose loyalty was measured by their capacity for predation, cruelty, and barbarity. Those who refined their torture, whether it be humiliation, degradation, rape, beatings, or the iron crusher, had themselves ceased being people and had become beasts.
Mobile phone cameras recorded their predation. This practice of doing so became a tool of political intimidation. In some of the most chilling footage, a regime officer is filmed by a colleague executing detainees before or after throwing them into a mass grave. This atrocity, known as the Tadamon Massacre of April 2013, epitomises the regime's use of savagery as policy.
Uncovering the truth
Those not killed but instead consigned to the gloom of the regime's blood-stained cells served a dual purpose of punishment and discipline. More importantly, their detention punished the families and kept Syrians in a state of terror. Those detained in places like Sednaya were hostages, tools of extortion. Every blow to their bodies, every insult hurled at them, was a message to a society trapped in a state of perpetual anxiety.
Aside from al-Assad, many of the perpetrators remain unknown. Identifying them and holding them accountable will take considerable time. In the meantime, a priority in the pursuit of lasting justice will be to uncover the full story of these detention centres, including victims' testimonies.
Crucial to this task will be understanding how this monstrous system was created, how it was nurtured and allowed to grow unchecked, and how the regime constructed, trained, and sustained the psychopathic personalities that became its enforcers.
Developing a detailed and accurate portrait of al-Assad's psychopaths is essential for understanding one of humanity's most oppressive manifestations of evil yet to unfurl. It will also be vital for dismantling the system and addressing its remnants in the future.
