試すGOLD- Free

'It was like I was reborn' Ex-inmates adapt to life after Assad

The Guardian Weekly|January 03, 2025
Prisoners in Sednaya prison endured squalid conditions, torture and the noise of fellow inmates being executed
- By Bethan McKernan SEDNAYA
'It was like I was reborn' Ex-inmates adapt to life after Assad

Ofall the horrors Mohammed Ammar Hamami remembers from his time in the Assad regime's notorious Sednaya prison, the most vivid is the clanging of metal execution tables being moved on the floor below.

About once every 40 days, prison guards would drag the tables away from under the feet of condemned men.

Nooses around their necks and hands tied behind their backs, they would die by hanging. Most of the bodies were burned in Sednaya's crematorium.

"When we hear this noise, it means they are executing people," the 31-yearold said, picking up the edge of a table and letting the smash of metal on metal echo around the room. "Imagine sitting upstairs and knowing prisoners are being executed downstairs." Hamami was freed from Sednaya after five hellish years on 8 December, when Syria's longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad fled in the face of a lightningfast Islamist rebel offensive. Along with the 20 other men held in his dirty, dark cell, he heard shouting in the corridor before collapsing in astonishment when his father's face appeared in the cell door's small window.

A week later, the mechanic wanted to return to Sednaya, on the outskirts of Damascus, to retrieve clothes left behind in the chaos - but also, he said, to try to understand that what he had lived through in what he called "the killing machine" was real.

この記事は The Guardian Weekly の January 03, 2025 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

この記事は The Guardian Weekly の January 03, 2025 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLYのその他の記事すべて表示
The Guardian Weekly

Even in the most harrowing cases, justice cannot be immune from scrutiny

When Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies, and attempting to murder seven more, the judge sentenced her to multiple whole-life terms for what he said had been “a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign”.

time-read
2 分  |
June 20, 2025
Old scores Why Greek myths are gods' gifts to musicals
The Guardian Weekly

Old scores Why Greek myths are gods' gifts to musicals

From Hadestown to H Hercules, eternal tales of love and coming of age are still reeling in audiences

time-read
3 分  |
June 20, 2025
Sin bins Mexican restaurant on a zero-waste mission
The Guardian Weekly

Sin bins Mexican restaurant on a zero-waste mission

Sourcing local produce and using pre-Hispanic agricultural techniques, Baldío has embraced a regenerative ethos - with delicious results

time-read
3 分  |
June 20, 2025
The blunt truth behind Ballymena’s explosion of hate
The Guardian Weekly

The blunt truth behind Ballymena’s explosion of hate

Northern Ireland faces stark questions over the racism, xenophobia, and intolerance that has forced families from abroad to flee

time-read
4 分  |
June 20, 2025
'A billionaire would pay a lot of money to shoot a recreated woolly mammoth' Sadiah Qureshi on extinction and empire
The Guardian Weekly

'A billionaire would pay a lot of money to shoot a recreated woolly mammoth' Sadiah Qureshi on extinction and empire

In her new book, Vanished, the historian of science traces the roots of how we treat life, whether living, endangered, dead or extinct

time-read
5 分  |
June 20, 2025
Trip advisers 'Street tutors' aim to teach tourists good etiquette
The Guardian Weekly

Trip advisers 'Street tutors' aim to teach tourists good etiquette

In the era of overtourism, every popular holiday destination has its tipping point.

time-read
3 分  |
June 20, 2025
Blue dawn Is Gavin Newsom the Democrat for the moment?
The Guardian Weekly

Blue dawn Is Gavin Newsom the Democrat for the moment?

When Donald Trump landed in Los Angeles to tour the ruins left by January’s devastating wildfires, just days after being sworn in for a second term, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, was waiting on the tarmac to greet him.

time-read
3 分  |
June 20, 2025
Labour's wager Will investment bring voters onside by the next election?
The Guardian Weekly

Labour's wager Will investment bring voters onside by the next election?

Just before winning his second term in office, Barack Obama made a plea to US voters not to switch back to the Republicans: \"They drove our economy into a ditch and then they got the nerve to ask for the keys back.

time-read
2 分  |
June 20, 2025
How Ontario became the measles centre of the west
The Guardian Weekly

How Ontario became the measles centre of the west

Outside the emergency room of the St Thomas Elgin general hospital, about 200km south-west of Toronto, a large sign in bright yellow block letters reads: \"NO MEASLES VAX & FEVER COUGH RASH - STOP - DO NOT ENTER!

time-read
3 分  |
June 20, 2025
How millions of Americans stood up to be counted over Trump
The Guardian Weekly

How millions of Americans stood up to be counted over Trump

As tanks and soldiers paraded through the streets of Washington last Saturday, several million people turned out under the “No Kings” banner in about 2,100 sites around the US, from big cities to small towns, to protest against the excesses of Donald Trump's administration.

time-read
3 分  |
June 20, 2025

当サイトではサービスの提供および改善のためにクッキーを使用しています。当サイトを使用することにより、クッキーに同意したことになります。 Learn more