Tadmur Prison

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The prison in Tadmur ( Arabic سجن تدمر Sidschn Tadmur , DMG Siǧn Tadmur , Tadmur ) is a former prison in Syria . It is located in the Syrian desert in Homs Governorate not far from the ancient world heritage site of Palmyra , which is also called "Tadmur" in Arabic.

history

The older part of the prison complex was built by the French in the 1930s during the French Mandate in Syria with 24 large cells. Initially, however, it was largely used for military barracks and was only converted into a prison after Syria's independence. The younger part was created under President Hafiz al-Assad in the 1970s.

On June 26, 1980, President Hafiz al-Assad was assassinated with two hand grenades , which he survived. In retaliation for the attack, his brother Rifaat al-Assad had around 500 to 800 prisoners murdered by 60 soldiers on June 27, 1980 in the old part of the prison in Tadmur, where mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood were detained.

Former inmates reported particularly inhumane detention conditions in Tadmur. For example, the author Mustafa Khalifa, who was released in 1994 after years of imprisonment, describes that around 300 prisoners have since been housed in a 15 by 6 meter cell.

Other prisoners also report torture and murder.

In addition to inmates who were arrested on charges of membership in the Muslim Brotherhood or terrorist activities, there were also numerous political prisoners from the community of the banned Syrian Communist Party during the 1980s , including the writer Yassin al-Haj Saleh .

Mustafa Khalifa's documentary-autobiographical novel “Das Schneckenhaus” (Arabic: Al-Qawqaʿa: Yawmiyyāt Mutalaṣṣi ṣ) about the imprisonment in Tadmur was published in France in 2008 and was particularly well received at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War as evidence of the brutal methods of rule of the House of Assad .

In May 2015, the Islamic State militia blew up the prison.

Trivia

The US website "Criminal Justice Degree Hub" listed the prison among the "10 most brutal prisons in the world". In 2017, the documentary “Tadmor” was broadcast for the first time, in which former inmates talk about their memories from prison. In October 2017, director Muhammad Bayazid, who was also working on a film about the Tadmur prison, was injured by a knife attack in Istanbul, according to media reports.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The New Arab & agencies: The darker side of Syria's Palmyra. Retrieved February 3, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Cecily Hilleary: Syria's Tadmor Prison Massacre: Reliving Horrors of 32 Years Past. In: middleeastvoices.voanews.com. June 18, 2014, accessed January 22, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Mustafa Khalifa: "The Snail Shell" - "This book is a must to understand Syria". Retrieved February 3, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Interview with former Syrian prisoner Bara Sarraj: "After Tadmor you come to die". In: de.qantara.de. March 5, 1984. Retrieved January 22, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Human Rights Watch: SYRIA'S TADMOR PRISON DISSENT STILL HOSTAGE TO A LEGACY OF TERROR. 1996, accessed February 3, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Mustafa Khalifa: The snail shell . Weidle Verlag, Bonn 2019.
  7. ↑ Angela Schader: Asli Erdogan and Mustafa Khalifa: Views into the hell of the dungeon . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . ( nzz.ch [accessed on February 3, 2020]).
  8. ^ Prison of the Assad regime: IS blows up the torture prison in Palmyra. In: Spiegel Online . May 30, 2015, accessed January 22, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Top 10 Most Violent Prisons in the World. December 23, 2013, accessed February 3, 2020 .
  10. ^ Former detainees in Tadmor break their silence. Retrieved February 3, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Justin Jouvenal (The Washington Post): This filmmaker was stabbed on a dark Istanbul street. Was he set up by a murderous dictator or did he stage it like a Hollywood thriller? March 8, 2018, accessed February 3, 2020 .

Coordinates: 34 ° 33 ′ 32 ″  N , 38 ° 17 ′ 7 ″  E