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Amira tells horrific stories of her arrest, detainees killed and chopped

(Zaman Al Wasl)- After a round of dirty talk and swearing at Rima, the warden asked her inmates to throw her out of the cell despite the deadly.

Being a member in a family loyal to Bashar al-Assad was a heavy burden on Rima who joined the Syrians dream in freedom and dignity.

The dialogue that took place between Rima and the guard caused great bewilderment and surprise for the detainee, Amira Fuad Tayyar, who was 44, and her colleagues who were detained in section 215, so they tried to seek out Rima’s explanation for the real reason of her arrest when she belonged to a family loyal to the regime. 

Amira harassed her will all types of questions that eventually boiled up to only one: Why are you detained even though you belong to a prominent family like "Galladin"? The answer came: I gave the rebels weapons and helped the soldiers to desert.

Former prisoner "Amira Tayyar" expressed her deep surprise at finding this girl in the detention camps, where she joined them after a long journey between security branches and detainee camps that started since her arrest by members of the "State Security" in Hama city, her arrest is due to her turning of her home to a field hospital that received the wounded protesters and then the rebels.

The detainee, who worked as a former Red Crescent volunteer, said that State Security agents burned her house and then prosecuted her before arresting her on October 22, 2014 at her family's home in al-Ba'ath. She spent 10 days in the branch, during which an interrogator named Firas Dunya asked her about the names of the leaders of the revolutionaries, to which her answer has always been: "I do not know." 

After a while, Amira's mother came to the court waiting at its door for her daughter to be released, but the members of the "Military Security" prevented that again, tied Amira down and took her away. 

They transferred her to Barad Lahmah. Their justifications for this act and their promises to release Amira after the completion of the investigations failed to prevent the mother’s now unstoppable nervous breakdown and she ended up collapsing and falling to the ground.

Amira inwardly feared that her detention would last longer than promised. And her fear came true when the two days investigation turned into a month of being trapped in a small "toilet" room in the Military Security branch in Hama. Implicit in the question which was repeatedly asked was the already made up charge: why have you become armed? Why did you cooperate with terrorists? 

The torture, threats and humiliation, including the detention of the small "toilet" rooms for a month, lasted for a long while until five girls arrived in the detention room to join Amira in the already very small room.  They were then transferred to the "Criminal Security" branch, then the military police in Hama, the military police in Homs, precisely the "Balloona" and "the Rubaiyah" prisoners in Homs before being transferred to Damascus. 

In the capital, Amira and her female prisoners moved between 10 security branches, starting from the 215th, 227nd, 229, and the Air Intelligence Branch, the Mazza Military Airport, then the 555 Branch until they settled in Branch 235; and everywhere, the same questions were directed to Amira and her fellow detainees:  why did you helped the terrorists? What you're doing is not right! You are terrorists! 

In a cell which is 3 meters of longitude and about 2 meters of latitude holding 60 detainees, no one can sit on a single slab.  The detainees spend day and night either standing or uncomfortably sitting, among them was a 85-year-old woman sitting there with her daughter and four of her daughters in law. 

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The Old woman, her daughter and her daughters in law shared Amira’s cell, after being accused of murdering one of the regime’s officers beating him on the head to death. 

Amira asserts that this accusation made all the women of this elderly‘s family share the cell with other older women who cannot extend their legs during sleep. So they have to sleep in a sitting position, and they are only allowed to drink water or go to the bathroom once in 24 hours.

Scabies and lice were common among women prisoners because of water scarcity and because they were rarely allowed to use it as well as having to use the bathroom only for a few minutes.

The former detainee says that the female detainees are made to witness the torture of the men by jailers, and guards. So they witness cases of deliberate castration and the cutting of the male organs and see it happen before their eyes. These cases usually end with the direct death of the detainee.

Not to mention the "snail" machine used by the security forces to rip the detainees apart as a form of torture. When "Amira" witnessed the hashing of a detainee with that tool, she could barely believe her eyes, but the incident ended up being eternally engraved in her memory. 

However, one of the most difficult situations for women detainees, especially the prison section 215, is the place where the prison guards and "Rima" discuss the supervision of the male jailers to inspect the detainees after being ordered to remove their clothes completely.  She described the scene saying: "As soon as I got in, the jailer told me to take off all my clothes for inspection, lest there be any phones hidden between my clothes," She added: “When I saw the girls in front of me undressing, I fainted and fell to the ground. But I was forced to undergo the same humiliating procedure as soon as I woke up.” She keeps repeating: “I have never imagined that I would be ever asked to take off my clothes in front of jailers under the pretext of inspection."

Since the Syrian revolution erupted in 2011, more than 360,000 people have been killed, and more than 6 million people have been displaced.

Zaman Al Wasl
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