This is a difficult subject for me to cover, for several reasons. But I think it really needs to be examined.
And right from the start, let me just say clearly that I am opposed to all forms of torture, mistreatment of prisoners, or unjust incarceration of political opponents or activists.
I don’t want any of what’s said in this article to be misconstrued as being a defense of any alleged barbaric practises. This article is not a defense of anything, nor is it any kind of apologism.
With that being said, let’s get into this.
Has anyone noticed that, since the collapse of the Syrian regime, the only thing the media seems to have focused on is the Sednaya prison?
In the wake of the fall of the Syrian regime and the rebel takeover of the major cities, almost every major media outlet has been singularly obsessed with the infamous prison and its alleged abuses.
Dozens and dozens of news stories have focused on the prison’s grim history and the abuses and even deaths that have occurred there during the decades of the regime.
No doubt this is, at face value, a significant human story, about systematic human rights abuses, torture and barbarism. Fair enough.
But the extensive focus on this one element of the Syrian situation has been curious – as relevant as it might be.
Those news items started about two days after the fall of Damascus – and they’re still cropping up daily.
From CNN and most of the US networks, the BBC, Sky News: in fact, seemingly every news broadcaster in the world has been running these pieces for days on end.
I actually started counting the number of major news network uploads that appeared on my YouTube feed concerning the Sednaya prison – I got to about thirty seven.
And new pieces are popping up even today.
And they’re getting more extreme in their language each time. ‘Assad’s Human Slaughterhouse’ was one that I saw recently.
Here’s a few examples.
Another compared the liberation of the regime prison complex to the liberation of Nazi concentration camps in 1945.
Indeed, one piece even linked the prison system directly to the Nazis, claiming that the Syrian state was taught how to run its prisons and its torture programme by Hitler-era German Nazi officers. This element seems to be true to some extent.
But the comparisons between the Syrian regime and Nazi Germany have in fact been around for several years now: and a Google Search shows that, curiously, most of these articles are either Israeli, Jewish or Turkish at source. Here’s an example. Here’s another.
There have been reports of underground dungeons. Of industrial presses that crushed prisoners to death. And other equally terrible things that are extremely difficult to think about.
There are also now claims abut mass graves being examined.
If even some of these claims are true, it’s horrific – and should be talked about. And investigated.
The West’s own connection to the Sednaya Prison is also something not being mentioned: but we’ll come to that shortly.
But have objective investigators gathered any evidence yet? Is the UN going to look into these claims and the evidence – or are we going to rely purely on CNN, Al-Jazeera and the armed rebel groups that are currently in control on the ground?
We should cite one CNN piece here in particular, which has come under heavy scrutiny. In it, veteran CNN reporter Clarissa Ward (who has a history of doing PR pieces for foreign-policy purposes) is shown with rebel fighters discovering a lone, lingering prisoner in one of the prisons. Here’s the video.
They bring the shell-shocked prisoner out, the CNN reporter taking him by the arm, and he marvels as he supposedly sees daylight for the first time in months, breaking down and overcome with emotion.
It’s all very dramatic and emotional. The problem is that it’s clearly a fake scene – it’s all been staged with an actor.
The man is wearing clean clothes, doesn’t look anything like someone who’s supposedly been incarcerated for ages and hasn’t had food or water, etc. Not to mention that it makes little sense for this one prisoner to remain undiscovered days after everyone else was liberated and the complex fully examined.
In other words, Clarissa Ward and CNN staged a fake event with an actor – and did it really badly too. The fake inmate has subsequently been revealed to have been a regime officer, which makes the whole thing even more embarrassing.
Given how much fakery and staged theatrics previously went on with things like the various chemical attacks allegedly carried out by the regime (and which international media entirely participated in), this kind of manipulative theater isn’t surprising. It was standard practice in Libya in 2011.
But why do it?
And why has the coverage of the prisons been so relentless and so continuous?
Why is the prison the only newsworthy angle to the end of the Syrian regime and the rebel factions’ victory?
Aren’t there any other significant stories or aspects to this historic moment of change in Syria?
Well, let’s get into this.
And, full disclaimer, this isn’t about whether the horrific claims about what went on in the prison are true or false, or exaggerated.
My assumption is that much of it is true (the whispers about the prison’s dark practices have existed for years, and Amnesty International levelled accusations against the Syrian state over this site years ago too): but that there’s also exaggeration and fakery going on too.
But this is about the media’s singular focus on Sednaya – and why this has been made into the central or defining element of this ‘liberation of Syria’.
There is a specific reason for this international media hyper-focus on the prison: and we’ll get to it at the end here.
Interestingly, after the collapse of the Libyan state in 2011, a similar series of news items occurred, this time about apparently brutal prisons and cruel incarcerations under the Gaddafi regime.
In both the Libyan and Syrian cases, I don’t refute that these prisons and the abuses of its detainees were likely appalling. Or that many people incarcerated there probably weren’t criminals at all, but political prisoners and people who spoke against the regime.
So, again, don’t get me wrong: I’m not playing apologist here or trying to downplay likely inhumane behaviour.
There’s two things to keep in mind, however.
The first is that these types of horrific prisons and practices exist in lots of places – including in regimes that we in the West are friends with and do business with.
Prisons in that part of the world are not known for their kindness or respect for human rights.
It would be a joke to suggest that there aren’t comparable prisons in Saudi Arabia or Qatar, for example. And we know about the brutality of Egypt’s prisons and its treatment of political prisoners.
Here’s a report on the Saudi prisons. And here’s another, especially concerning the infamous al-Ha’ir complex.
But we say nothing. Because they’re our friends.
Pakistan is another massive example. The abuses and torture that have gone on in Pakistan – especially during the height of the War on Terror – are extraordinary. And were carried out – to this day (just ask Imran Khan’s supporters) – by a US-backed military state. A 2008 account revealed some 52 ‘torture and detention centers’ in Pakistan.
For that matter, the notorious American abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib are nothing to boast about.
Neither was the programme of ‘extraordinary rendition’ that not just the Americans and British, but most Western nations, participated in after 9/11 – which we’ll come back to shortly, because it relates directly to the ‘Assad Slaughterhouse’.
And let’s not forget Guantanamo Bay – a prison complex that had to be kept in Cuba (against the will of Cuba itself) because what was going on there was illegal on American soil.
Guantanamo is still in operation, by the way.
And let’s not overlook Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in its prisons – which could warrant a whole book.
The same Israel, by the way, whose soldiers have been raping prisoners in Gaza – and then being celebrated in the streets and hero worshipped on Israeli television for it.
Are we getting the picture here?
Yet, the way the media has been covering the Syrian prison, it’s as if this is the only place where such horrendous things have happened – and that Assad and the ousted regime are therefore some species of incomparable monsters who’s defeat should be unanimously celebrated.
I’m not at all taking issue with the Syrians celebrating the fall of the regime or being focused on the prison specifically. Their celebrations have justification, based on their experiences or affiliations.
Nor am I taking issue with the rebel fighters who made the liberation of the prison such a central and important symbolic moment in their victory.
Some of them might’ve been detained and tortured there: or have friends or relatives who were tortured or even died there.
Some of those, let’s be honest, might also have been legitimate terrorists and armed rebels, including members of the Islamic State group or the Al-Qaeda affiliates.
Which is something the media reports uniformly overlook. It was the same in Libya.
As I highlighted in ‘The Libya Conspiracy‘ years ago, Gaddafi had actually released scores of Libyan jihadists and Islamists from prison in early 2011, regarding them as ‘rehabilitated’ and declaring an amnesty.
Most of those same men were, weeks later, involved in the armed uprising against the state, establishing mini Al-Qaeda ‘caliphates’ and soon enough being militarily allied to NATO.
Assad had also declared an amnesty for Islamist fighters in Turkish controlled Idlib after the apparent or false end of the war – and these were the fighters that presumably overran Aleppo, Damascus and other cities in the last few weeks.
Also, the foreign media reporting in Syria is embedded with the rebels and is therefore participating in the rebels’ own PR exercises: the prison liberation being a central part of that – along with the horrific stories.
It was the same in Ukraine where, for example, Western journalists were embedded with Azov fighters and entirely reliant on them for establishing the ‘facts’ about the alleged massacre in Bucha (which I examined at length here).
It is highly biased and unobjective coverage, in other words.
And some of it is clearly being staged for maximum propaganda impact. This is illustrated nowhere better than in the aforementioned Clarissa Ward piece for CNN, in which an obviously fake drama is acted out for the cameras.
Note as well that most of the emerging news items talking about mass graves or even alleged underground cells at Sednaya visibly feature men wearing the symbol of the dubious White Helmets organisation: which links us right back to the manipulations of the various chemical attack theatrics.
These are example videos, where you can clearly see the White Helmets emblem on the clothes.
But let’s not linger on that – let’s just accept the principle that torture and unlawful killing is entirely inhumane and indefensible.
So no, I am not faulting the Syrians or even the rebel fighters for focusing on the prison.
But the international media – and some of our politicians – is where the gross hypocrisy lies: and where the motivation needs to be examined.
Because not only do we do business with and provide cover for regimes who’s practises are no different to the apparent abuses of the Syrian regime – but it’s worse than that.
We have used them to facilitate our own inhumane abuses of prisoners or suspects.
This is where the hypocrisy over Sednaya becomes all the more troublesome: because Sednaya Prison itself was used as a black site for extraordinary rendition during the War on Terror!
We literally asked the Syrian regime to assist in torture – and we used Sednaya Prison for it.
For example, here is an extract from a 2007 report by the The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, titled ‘Post-9/11 renditions: An extraordinary violation of international law’.
It concerns the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was actually later found innocent of any terrorism link. His only crime was travelling to Tunisia – which is where he was apprehended.
He was taken to Sednaya after first being abused at another Syrian prison, Far Felestin.
The article explains: ‘Arar confessed to membership in al Qaeda, even though the Canadian Commission of Inquiry subsequently found that he had absolutely no connection with the organization or terrorism. After 10 months and 10 days of detention, he was transferred to Sednaya Prison, in Syria, where he reported that conditions were “like heaven” compared with Far Falestin. On October 5, 2003, he was released from custody after signing a “confession” given to him by a Syrian prosecutor. He has since been awarded $8.9 million in damages (and an official apology) by the Canadian government…’
If it happened in this one case that was exposed, then we can assume Sednaya was used on other occasions too.
Besides, we know various sites all over the world were used for illegal torture practices by the US, Britain, Canada and the Western allies. Here’s the list 54 countries that facilitated the rendition and torture.
The same thing was exposed in Libya, if you recall: for all our talk of Gaddafi’s brutal prisons, Britain also used the Libyan prisons for extraordinary rendition.
This was particularly exposed by one case: that of Abdelhakim Belhaj, who ended up being a rebel leader in the NATO-backed uprising against Gaddafi. After Gaddafi’s downfall, Belhaj tried to sue the British government for his torture in a Libyan prison during the War on Terror.
The fact that he ended up later being an Islamist militant leader working in alliance with France, Britain, the US and NATO is an irony we don’t need to linger on here.
The point is to highlight the hypocrisy of citing the abuses at the Sednaya prison as some kind of final proof of the Syrian regime’s singular evil – when we both support regimes that do the same, *and* have done comparable things ourselves.
Not to mention that we’ve used that very same site for torture purposes!
The level of either cognitive dissonance or deliberate dishonesty is not even surprising at this point, but it’s still disturbing.
Again, none of which is to defend whatever inhumane practises might have gone on in that prison or to whitewash the Syrian regime of deplorable practises.
The case of the heroic Mazen al-Hamada, for example, is heartbreaking – and he was clearly not someone who should’ve even been in prison at all, let alone tortured and allegedly killed there.
Any regime that carries out such abuses of prisoners fully deserves to be exposed for it – and to carry the stain of it forever.
But, again, there are lots of regimes with similar prisons and abuses: including our friends.
It’s obvious the reason the corporate media is so focused on this one particular thing is because the West is trying to build up a war crimes case against Assad and the regime – largely to justify whatever happens in Syria going forward.
While Bashar al-Assad himself is seemingly safe in Russia and therefore unlikely to have to endure the fate of Saddam Hussein (sham ‘trial’ and all), it remains to be seen where the growing calls for ‘justice’ against regime officials are going to lead.
And the stories about this prison are going to be a big part of that.
Why else are we getting over-the-top pieces comparing the regime’s prisons to the Nazi concentration camps – or even linking the Syrian state’s prison programme directly to Nazi regime figures?
There has to be a reason the media is so singularly obsessed with this prison and its stories.
I would suggest they’re working hard to impress into the popular perception the idea that the Assad regime and the former Syrian state were inhumane and monstrous beyond redemption. On a par even with the Third Reich.
In which case, it’s primarily a propaganda exercise: not an honest human rights issue.
And we’ve seen it before. I might’ve even talked about it in an old article after the fall of Gaddafi in Libya: how a manipulative BBC documentary appeared shortly after Gaddafi’s death and used deceptive editing techniques and dubious interviews to portray the deposed Libyan figurehead as some kind of barbarous inhuman who raped young girls and ordered Libyan passenger planes to be shot down.
In that case, it was presumably to reinforce the justification for NATO and the West having militarily intervened in Libya on the side of the rebels and Al Qaeda.
In this Syrian case, it is both to prepare the groundwork for future proceedings against former Syrian state officials… and, again, to reinforce the justification for the West having intervened in Syria on the side of the rebels and Al Qaeda.
Essentially, we need to continually justify what we’ve done or what we’ve helped bring about – and extreme demonisation is essential to that end.
The same media hasn’t been reporting on crimes or abuses the rebel groups were alleged to have committed during the course of the war.
Nor has anything really been said about apparent public executions of regime officials in the streets – some of which have been caught on video since the capture of Damascus.
Whatever unfolds in Syria now, whether good or bad, this immediate propaganda exercise is to maximise the idea that the collapsed former Syrian state was the worst thing imaginable – and that *anything* is therefore preferable, including the possibility of hardline Islamist rule or even Israeli and Turkish land grabs.
At any rate, don’t be fooled by the media’s apparent outrage over the treatment of prisoners in Syria.
It isn’t being driven by any kind of compassion or morality. It is political, and entirely cynically motivated.
Great Piece…Fuck Israel