Assad’s Sednaya Prison Turns into Syrian Jubilation

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Sednaya Prison: Assad’s ‘Red Building’ Gain Spotlight in Syria

By Raisina Correspondent

New Delhi, December 9: Syrians from as far as Jordan rushed to Damascus in their cars to check on Sednaya Prison after the fall of the city to the Türkiye-backed rebels on Sunday. The prison inmates erupted in joys and checked with the people on the street about the sudden change in their fortunes.

Sednaya Prison in Damascus is known as ‘Red Building’. Syria’s ruler and President Bassar al-Assad allegedly jailed Opposition leaders in the Sednaya Prison. Russia has granted asylum to Assad. The Syrian ruler fled with his family to Moscow yesterday.

“A person will die a hundred deaths before reaching death (execution) in Sednaya prison,” Anadolu English stated in a video of the released prisoners sharing the accounts of their ordeals in the prison.

Türkiye-based news agency described the Sednaya Prison as the ‘human slaughterhouse’. It shared accounts of the freed inmates, who had been backed in the large multi-layered jail after the outbreak of a massive opposition against the rule of Assad in Syria in 2011.

The freed jail inmates are giving accounts of the “oppressive conditions and torture” meted out to the prisoners in the Sednaya Prison. “Thousands of Syrians rushed to Sednaya, also called the Human Slaughterhouse, tonight to check on their loved ones amid reports that underground cells have not been opened yet,” Nada Maucourant Atallah, a French-Lebanese journalist, posted on X.

She said that the “families are hopeful. This is two km from the entrance, people left their car and finished walking.” The outskirts of Damascus buzzed with cars as the people thronged to the city to find their jailed relatives.

Reports on the Sednaya Prison stated that Assad sent political opponents, including human rights activists and journalists, to the ‘Red Building’. The inmates were packed, 10 in each cell, with at least three underground floors. The ventilation in the cells is seen bare minimum per local video footages.

There were jubilations on the street after the first batch of the prisoners emerged out of the Saydnayah Prison. Step News Agency shared a vivid description of a video of a jubilant freed inmate who “leapt into the arms of relatives in a sudden, disbelieving hug, the three men clasping each other and sobbing with joy before one fell to his knees, still clutching the freed man’s legs.”

Several videos from the prison complex showed the people checking the files left behind by the guards to know the fate of their loved ones. Anadolu English released a drone image of the roads and the highways on the outskirts of Damascus showing traffic snarls.

“The complex (prison) was believed to have up to 20,000 detainees. But the Red building itself is said to have way more than double. Some levels still haven’t been reached. There are several floors under Saydnayah Prison which couldn’t be reached so far due to the special (unique) security mechanisms,” Qalaat Al Mudiq, a Syrian military observer, stated in a post on X.

He stated that the “Red Building was a section in the Saydnayah Prison dedicated to civilians arrested by Assad’s Regime since 2011”. Assad had faced a massive eruption of opposition to his rule in 2011 amid the sudden arrival of ‘Arab Spring’ that had brought change in government in Tunisia. The Assad Regime has the support of Russia and Iran while the US and Isreal claimed neutrality.

“The revolutionaries reached the red prison within Sednaya Prison, three floors underground. To free political prisoners and prisoners of conscience from it. Have you started to know the truth about the Assad regime and who is Bashar al-Assad?,” asked Ragip Soylu, a local journalist, in a post on X.

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