Abd al-Razzaq al-Mahdi on Prisons and Torture in the 'Liberated' Areas of Syria

Allegations and reports of torture and abuse in prisons in the Syrian civil war have abounded. Much of the focus in this regard is on the Syrian government side, though in truth, probably no side is innocent of allegations of torture and abuse against detainees. This assessment does not mean making an exact moral equivalence between all sides, but it should be recognised that much of the problem surrounding torture and abuse in prisons goes back to a wider regional culture of cruelty in the judicial system, in which it is considered acceptable to use coercive means to extract information and secure confessions.

The following series of posts were written by Abd al-Razzaq al-Mahdi, a cleric in the area of Idlib and its environs who was at one time affiliated with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. In these posts, al-Mahdi discusses the problem of torture and abuse in prisons in the ‘liberated’ areas of Syria (i.e. those outside of government control and held by the insurgents, including but not necessarily limited to Idlib and its environs). He also discusses the issue of detention of women and young children being imprisoned with their mothers.