In the basements of the lion .. They told me to show your child after he becomes a young man

Psychiatric torture in the prisons of Bashar al-Assad is no less severe than physical torture. Prisoners of the teacher Rafidah Zaitoun said: "You will see your child after he becomes a young man." They assured her that she would remain in detention for many years.

Rufaida, a 38-year-old daughter of Damascus, was arrested in 2014 for two years. She was told in prison that she would not go out in the short term and would not be able to see her six-year-old son as a young man.

"I was arrested with my mother and sister for two years because of my brother's activity, as a means of pressure to surrender," the Syrian woman began telling her story to Anatolia.

"The beginning of the arrest was with my mother being hit in the house at night. When we took her to the hospital the next day, she was in a coma with extreme care.

"Make sure that my brother is wanted, and in a small room with a bed only, we stayed 15 days until my mother regained consciousness, and I was not allowed to see her," she said.

"After a period they brought my mother to the room and the three of us took us, and whenever I ask why we are detained here, they say nothing but instructions and we stayed 6 months and 20 days in this room," he said.

They were then taken to a second room in the hospital, where they stayed for four months. They were then transferred to a security headquarters where they were held in a dormitory with 40 girls, amid the surprise of everyone from a paralyzed prison because of her son.

She said, "Leave me five days without investigation, and then put me on the ground. The interrogator asked me for information about me and my eyes are tied ... He asked me about my family, and when he says that I'm a terrorist, I say no. He starts cursing and insulting me and avoids me because of my mother who is in need. "He said.

Arrest of children
"I asked him about my brother, so I told him I had no income. After interrogating me without beatings, I was removed and my sister was brought out to match the conversation. We stayed in the collective room for a month, and once we heard the voices of bringing in new detainees, including children. "He said.

The former prisoner says that after a period she was transferred for exchange with the opposition. "We were 19 girls, and the door was closed to us. No one entered us and we stayed like this. There was a distance under the door where insects and rats came in and fed us, and our legs and backs and joints began to hurt us."

"Once we refused to eat to find out what was our fate, until the colonel came and opened the door to the prison and said, 'You must eat,' he said. 'We wanted to know our fate, he began to humiliate us, and then he said he would enter the food soon and those who insult her honor would avoid eating.

"He told me specifically that if you did not eat I'll put you in front of the young people, which made us remain silent waiting for the vulva, and we stayed in the room 8 months."

On the subject of torture, Rufaida said she was not tortured, but the rest of the girls were beaten. "The foul words are harder than the torture, and the psychological state too. I was crying for my son and when they felt that they were saying, do not bother me when he's young enough to see him."

"I was six years old, planted in my head that I would not go out, psychologically broken, in addition to the sound of torture from midnight to dawn."

A painful punishment
"We used to clog our ears so that we would not hear. Every day at 7 am, the doctors came to heal the tortured youth. We saw them from the cracks in the door, lice and scabies covering them, their bodies were black with diseases and swelling."

She pointed out that one of the detainees was the bones of his chest chest out of his body from frequent beatings, adding "I saw him myself, and his eye was swollen by the severity of torture."

The Syrian woman said that after eight months he was transferred to Adra prison, where the situation was better because it was a central prison and had visits.

"The request came before a judge in the terrorism court. We were 13 girls, including me, my mother and my sister, and my mother was pregnant."

"I told the judge that we had nothing to do with my brother, but the judge stopped me for five months in Adra prison. I heard the voice of my children, the contact was allowed, I knew where they were, but no one visited me because my brothers were trapped."

"I was released four days in Damascus and I was very afraid. I later went with my children to Idlib. I am now with my children and my sick mother in Idlib, while my husband returned to Damascus."