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Presidential Amnesty in Syria Covers Daraa Inmates

A picture shared by Syrian opposition activists showing the families of detainees in central Damascus (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A picture shared by Syrian opposition activists showing the families of detainees in central Damascus (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Presidential Amnesty in Syria Covers Daraa Inmates

A picture shared by Syrian opposition activists showing the families of detainees in central Damascus (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A picture shared by Syrian opposition activists showing the families of detainees in central Damascus (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Dozens of prisoners who originate from Syria’s southern Daraa governorate have been released, mostly from the country’s largest and most notorious prison, Sednaya. Their release came upon the implementation of an amnesty decree issued by President Bashar al-Assad.

According to Daraa-based activists, some of those released were detained prior to the 2018 settlement deal struck by the opposition in the southern governorate and Damascus. However, others released were arrested and jailed after the 2018 deal.

The freed citizens, some of whom are in bad health, had spent 7,5, or 4 years in Syria’s penitentiaries.

M.M., aged 32, tells the story of how he was detained over three years ago by the Syrian authorities and had suffered humiliation and torture alongside other fellow inmates during their stay in Syria’s prisons.

His bitter story is backed up by the evidence of his malnourished slender body and the festering suppurations all over his limbs.

M.M. revealed that his jailers in Syrian prisons had a tradition of serving new inmates a “welcome party” that consisted of torture served by officers. Every time M.M. was transferred to a new facility, he had to relive the horrific party that ends with blood, tears, and pain.

M.M.’s arrest had come out of the blue. He had decided to visit a doctor in Damascus after the 2018 deal, which he had thought would spell the end of the government’s pursuit of him for having fought alongside opposition factions. Contrary to his belief, M.M. was arrested on charges of terrorism and was thrown into Sednaya two years ago.

“I signed all the confession papers under torture and beatings. Until the last release, the jailers and prison officials deliberately insulted us with words. They said that we were being released by the merit of the kindness of President Assad,” M.M. told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Activists on social media shared footage that they said illustrates the extent of the suffering experienced by Syrians and the large numbers of detainees in Syria.

Photos of some who were released were published on social media sites such as Twitter, with many users commenting on the frailness of the former detainees and their traumatized gaze, likely caused by years of torture and trauma under detention. Many of them also reportedly suffer from memory loss, mental illness, and loss of physical abilities.

The footage showed large crowds gathered at the “President's Bridge” area in Damascus and some areas in the cities of Homs and Hama. Families of prisoners held for years in Syrian jails were closely watching the implementation of the presidential decree giving a general amnesty to their relatives convicted on terrorism charges.

The Ministries of Interior and Justice issued two statements to the semi-official al-Watan newspaper regarding gatherings under the “President’s Bridge” area in central Damascus and called not to gather there.

Since the decree was issued on Saturday – which granted “a general amnesty for terrorist crimes committed by Syrians” before 30 April, 2022, “except for those leading to the death of a person” – a few hundred detainees have reportedly been released, so far.

For its part, the Justice Ministry announced that during the past two days, hundreds of prisoners arrested from various governorates in Syria have been released, provided that the procedures for releasing the detainees are completed.

The released inmates were first processed by the Criminal Court of Terrorism and the Public Prosecution at the Terrorism Court. For several detainees whose verdicts have been appealed, the Special Chamber of the Terrorism Court will take over the order for their release within the next two days, the Justice Ministry added.

The ministry also confirmed that all prisoners covered by the amnesty decree will be released successively in the coming days.

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Arab World

In Lebanon, a Family's Memories are Detonated Along With Their Village

Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
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In Lebanon, a Family's Memories are Detonated Along With Their Village

Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura

Ayman Jaber’s memories are rooted in every corner of Mhaibib, the village in southern Lebanon he refers to as his “habibti,” the Arabic word for “beloved.” The root of the village’s name means “the lover” or “the beloved.”
Reminiscing about his childhood sweetheart, the 45-year-old avionics technician talks about how the young pair would meet in a courtyard near his uncle's house, The Associated Press said.
“I used to wait for her there to see her,” Jaber recalls with a smile. "Half of the village knew about us.”
The fond memory contrasts sharply with recent images of his hometown.
Mhaibib, perched on a hill close to the Israeli border, was leveled by a series of explosions on Oct. 16. The Israeli army released a video showing blasts ripping through the village in the Marjayoun province, razing dozens of homes to dust.
The scene has been repeated in villages across southern Lebanon since Israel launched its invasion a month ago with the stated goal of pushing Hezbollah militants back from the border. On Oct. 26, massive explosions in and around Odaisseh sparked an earthquake alert in northern Israel.
Israel says it wants to destroy a massive network of Hezbollah tunnels in the border area. But for the people who have been displaced, the attacks are also destroying a lifetime of memories.
Mhaibib had endured sporadic targeting since Hezbollah and Israeli forces began exchanging fire on Oct. 8 last year.
Jaber was living in Aramoun, just south of Beirut, before the war, and the rest of his family evacuated from Mhaibib after the border skirmishes ignited. Some of them left their possessions behind and sought refuge in Syria. Jaber's father and two sisters, Zeinab and Fatima, moved in with him.
In the living room of their temporary home, the siblings sip Arabic coffee while their father chain-smokes.
“My father breaks my heart. He is 70 years old, frail and has been waiting for over a year to return to Mhaibib,” Zeinab said. “He left his five cows there. He keeps asking, ‘Do you think they’re still alive?’”
Mhaibib was a close-knit rural village, with about 70 historic stone homes lining its narrow streets. Families grew tobacco, wheat, mulukhiyah (jute mallow) and olives, planting them each spring and waking before dawn in the summer to harvest the crops.
Hisham Younes, who runs the environmental organization Green Southerners, says generations of southerners admired Mhaibib for its one-or two-story stone homes, some built by Jaber’s grandfather and his friends.
“Detonating an entire village is a form of collective punishment and war crime. What do they gain from destroying shrines, churches and old homes?” Younes asks.
Abdelmoe’m Shucair, the mayor of neighboring Mays el Jabal, told the Associated Press that the last few dozen families living in Mhaibib fled before the Israeli destruction began, as had residents of surrounding villages.
Jaber's sisters attended school in Mays al-Jabal. That school was also destroyed in a series of massive explosions.
After finishing her studies in Beirut, Zeinab worked in a pharmacy in the neighboring village of Blida. That pharmacy, too, is gone after the Israeli military detonated part of that village. Israeli forces even bulldozed their village cemetery where generations of family members are buried.
“I don’t belong to any political group,” Zeinab says. “Why did my home, my life, have to be taken from me?”
She says she can't bring herself to watch the video of her village’s destruction. “When my brother played it, I ran from the room.”
To process what’s happening, Fatima says she closes her eyes and takes herself back to Mhaibib. She sees the sun setting, vividly painting the sky stretching over their family gatherings on the upstairs patio, framed by their mother’s flowers.
The family painstakingly expanded their home over a decade.
“It took us 10 years to add just one room,” Fatima said. “First, my dad laid the flooring, then the walls, the roof and the glass windows. My mom sold a year’s worth of homemade preserves to furnish it.” She paused. “And it was gone in an instant.”
In the midst of war, Zeinab married quietly. Now she’s six months pregnant. She had hoped to be back in Mhaibib in time for the delivery.
Her brother was born when Mhaibib and other villages in southern Lebanon were under Israeli occupation. Jaber remembers traveling from Beirut to Mhaibib, passing through Israeli checkpoints and a final crossing before entering the village.
“There were security checks and interrogations. The process used to take a full or half a day,” he says. And inside the village, they always felt like they were “under surveillance.”
His family also fled the village during the war with Israel in 2006, and when they returned they found their homes vandalized but still standing. An uncle and a grandmother were among those killed in the 34-day conflict, but a loquat tree the matriarch had planted next to their home endured.
This time, there is no home to return to and even the loquat tree is gone.
Jaber worries Israel will again set up a permanent presence in southern Lebanon and that he won't be able to reconstruct the home he built over the last six years for himself, his wife and their two sons.
“When this war ends, we’ll go back,” Ayman says quietly. “We’ll pitch tents if we have to and stay until we rebuild our houses.”