02 March 2019•Update: 05 March 2019
By Meryem Goktas
ANKARA
A woman formerly jailed by the Syrian regime is hoping to raise awareness about the plight of those still languishing in its prisons by recounting the human rights violations and abuse she was exposed to.
Speaking exclusively to Anadolu Agency, Fatima Tlas recalled her arrest and torture during her 60 days of incarceration.
Tlas was arrested in April 2013 at a regime checkpoint while she was traveling to Jordan to visit her mother.
“I was on the way with my three children -- aged 10, six and two – when I was arrested,” she said.
“I had to beg them [regime soldiers] not to take my children with me [to prison] when they arrested me. I left my children behind with the driver, who dropped them off at my mother’s place.”
The 33-year-old was brought to a military prison in As-Suwayda city located in southwestern Syria close to the border with Jordan.
"In fact, there was no clear reason [for my arrest]. They claimed I was arrested for being part of a family which opposed the regime in Syria," she said.
Tlas said her father and brother were killed in 2012 for opposing the regime.
“My only crime was to be a member of this family,” she added.
Prison conditions
Tlas said that during her time in prison, she shared a crowded cell with around 50 people.
“They would come to our cell to pick us up and beat and torture us as a daily routine.
“They would only allow us to go to the toilet for a very short time -- one time during the day. After that short time, you were forced to go back to the cell whether you finished your needs or not.
“Before that, I had to stay in the toilet for one week, as there was no space at all. Later, they brought me to the cell,” she said.
While in the cell, she would regularly hear prison guards torturing male inmates in the early morning hours.
“We would hear how the guards would talk to each other and say ‘This one is finished. He’s dead’, and how the bodies would be loaded into vehicles and brought somewhere.”
“We heard the sounds of torture and conversations between the guards every day,” she added.
“When I entered the prison, I never thought I would get out of there.”
Tlas said that one day, prison guards told her she could be freed as part of a prisoner exchange.
“One day, they took me and threw me out of a car somewhere on a street, without giving me any document which could prove that I was released without any charges,” she said.
Fear of being rearrested led Tlas to flee the country to her mother’s house in Jordan. She later fled to Turkey.
Call to international community
Speaking about the fear of not being reunited with her family and the psychological and physical torture she endured during her detention, Tlas called on the international community to save those who “continue to live in this hell".
“I am asking the international community to listen to their conscience,” she said.
Noting that women and children were arrested and held in prisons without any legal grounds, Tlas called on “those who are responsible” to act for their immediate release.
“I am calling on them [international community] to take action to ensure the freedom of children and women who remain in these prisons for many years,” she said.
Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.
According to UN figures, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed or displaced in the conflict, mainly by regime airstrikes in opposition-held areas.
