Syrians overthrew one police state and woke up inside a cheaper reboot of the same show: new flag, new president, same prison slang, same cables and cigarette burns, same families begging middlemen to “check if he’s still alive.”

The “New Syria” Reopens the Old Cells
After Bashar al-Assad fell in December 2024, rebel leaders promised to close his torture prisons; instead, at least 28 Assad‑era prisons and lockups are back in business under President Ahmed al‑Sharaa, now packed with “security detainees” held without formal charges.
​Reuters identified at least 829 people detained on security grounds since Assad’s fall, with overcrowding, scarce food, disease and almost no legal recourse, suggesting the real number is far higher.
​

From Liberation to Sectarian Round‑ups
The first wave of detainees were captured Assad soldiers and officers; then came mass arrests of Alawites after coastal unrest, Druze after sectarian bloodshed in the south, and Sunnis, Christians and Shi’ites swept up for “ties” to Assad, Iran, Hezbollah or just the wrong name at a checkpoint.
Eleven deaths in custody have been documented so far, including cases where families only found out via morgue photos or anonymous graves, while the new Interior Ministry insists abuses are “negative consequences” of an institutional “vacuum.”
​
Torture as a National Dialect
Old Assad‑era methods — the “dolab” (forcing bodies into a tire), “shabeh” (suspension by the wrists), “welcome parties” of corridor beatings — are still being used in lockups like Kafr Sousa, Mezzeh and other reopened intelligence sites.
​One farmer from Homs said Internal Security officers beat him and his teenage son until their feet were shredded, took $4,000 from the family, then detained and beat him again so badly they dumped him home wrapped in a blanket, assuming he was dead.
​
Extortion, Now With Revolutionary Branding
Families describe ransom demands between $500 and $90,000 to free conscripts, officers or “well‑off” detainees, often via WhatsApp and burner calls from people who sound suspiciously like the same security services that made the arrests.
​A Christian merchant, Milad al‑Farkh, was arrested on flimsy accusations, reportedly tortured to death in Kafr Sousa, then posthumously accused of hiding a bomb in his home after his family demanded an investigation.
​
The West Blesses the Upgrade
Human rights groups and the UN rights office report ongoing arbitrary detentions, disappearances and summary killings since Assad’s fall, but the Trump administration now treats Sharaa as a stabilizing ally and partner in containing Islamic State.
​So Syria gets the full “post‑dictator transition” package: a regime that calls itself new, prisons that look very old, a population learning that revolution mostly changed which uniforms run the rackets, and foreign patrons praising “stability” while the cells quietly refill.
​
In the end, Assad left for Moscow and left his system behind; Sharaa promised to bury that system, then moved into its basement and turned the lights back on.
​
#Syria #Assad #Sharaa #prisons #torture #fakeDemocracy

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

Ben Gvir’s Human Resources Department From Hell

Itamar Ben Gvir just turned prison oversight into a loyalty test written in blood.

Under the new setup, the National Security Minister has formally cut the number of “official inspectors” for security prisoners to fewer than 20 and handed six of those slots to members of bereaved families from the Choosing Life forum, whose children were killed in Palestinian attacks. These are not ceremonial escorts.

Under the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law, inspectors get real supervisory authority over conditions and implementation, including the right to be present at executions once the bill is fully in force.

This is the logical next step in a three‑year policy of turning prisons into a political stage. Ben Gvir has already paraded through Ofer Prison with victims’ relatives and the prison service chief while cameras rolled, as heavily armed guards stormed corridors, fired stun grenades and forced bound Palestinian detainees face‑down on the floor.

He then pushed the footage himself, boasting that “terrorists” are finally in “real prisons, not hotels,” and openly saying, surrounded by piled‑up prisoners, that what he really wants is to execute them.

What disappears in this script is any notion of neutral oversight. Family visits are cut back, Red Cross access is attacked, human rights groups are smeared, and when courts or professionals raise questions about torture, medical neglect or due process, the answer is to wheel in grieving parents with official badges and call that justice.

In sovereignty terms, the state is blurring one of its most dangerous powers — to cage and kill — into raw, personalized vengeance, wrapping it in grief that cannot be argued with.

It’s a politics that does two things at once. Outwardly, it sells the death penalty as “choosing life,” with golden noose pins in the Knesset and campaign videos in front of gallows. Inwardly, it hollows out the line between law and revenge.

The message to the prison system is simple: you are no longer enforcing a state standard; you are acting out a narrative for an audience that has already decided the only acceptable ending.

#Israel #BenGvir #prisons #deathpenalty #humanrights

📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸