Story of a Detainee 2: A Vegetable Seller

Samir Ahmed Al-Ghanim S.G. Age, 47, Damascus, Vegetable seller.

In 2015 I was working in the vegetable market in Damascus with my five cousins. When I finished buying vegetables to go sell them in the suburbs of Damascus, a security patrol stopped me and without warning. Next thing I know, they are blindfolding my cousins and I without asking us anything and they take us to one of the security branches at an unknown location. When we entered the entrance of the branch, the officers laughed at us non-stop leaving in my head a sound that I will never be able to forget.

The insults started to rain down on us, and the beatings and violence started. They were calling out “bring the animals into the stable.”

After waiting until the evening, I was investigated, and I no longer knew anything about those who were with me. My charge was financing terrorism, which I knew nothing about. After I denied these charges, I was subjected to all kinds of torture. They would always frighten me. Sometimes they would apply electricity to different parts of my body, sometimes they would pull out my nails with a sharp instrument until one day, my finger was cut off. After much suffering, I was transferred between the branches, one after the other, until I visited 9 security branches, and in each branch I wished for death and for my harsh life to end.

My last trial took place and I was transferred to Sednaya prison. We were a hundred prisoners in each room. The room was three by nine meters. We could not move. We were always standing. When we slept, we slept standing. I was tortured with the most severe and cruel punishments. Some of the types of torture I was subjected to included hitting me on the head with large cement blocks.

There was a prison guard called Azayel who would bring us food every three days. He would send only ten eggs for the hundred people. He would throw the food on the ground and we were forbidden to look until he left. Each person would get a bite of the egg and the others would not. We were all always looking at the ground. We were forbidden to move our heads or eyes because if we looked, we would be punished with the most severe punishments that could lead to death. We were also forbidden to whisper or talk to each other because there were informants among us prisoners. These informants were treated in the best way in terms of food and support.

There was one way for us to determine the time. Since we were underground, on the lower floor, the prison sewers would flow around us. There was a machine working to remove waste from the sewers and as long as the prison director was on duty, this machine was working. When the jailer's shift ended, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he would turn off the machine. The wastewater inside our cells would rise on us from two o'clock in the afternoon until eight o'clock in the morning.

During that time, the water would reach up to one meter the next day and cover our legs. We could not sleep inside the room.

This would lead us to get contagious diseases such as diarrhea. The odors gnawed at our breath and bodies. We would get scabies and lice because of the lack of cleanliness and the waste fats that stuck to our bodies. There were no cleaning materials to use or water for the bathroom. Sometimes the jailers would urinate on us. There were elderly men and children of about ten years old with us, and they would be tortured with us, there was no difference between us.

They would ask us about our religious beliefs. “Who is your God”, they would ask, but there was only one answer. That god, they would force us to say, was President Bashar al-Assad. Al-Assad is our God, God forbid, against our will, otherwise we would be killed.