(Zaman Al Wasl)- In this torture memo, Zaman al-Wasl met with a former detainee who was paralyzed due to shrapnel in 2013 and since her sought to get treatment she had been endured to hospital custody and security detention along with her two daughters.
Umm Mohamed, an old Lebanese woman, was wounded in 2013 by shrapnel of an artillery shell that fell near her house in Wadi Barada, Damascus, cutting her spinal cord. At the time, the regime's security checkpoints allowed her to be transferred to Al-Mujtahid hospital in Damascus accompanied by her daughters, one of whom was pregnant.
At the hospital, she was blackmailed and was charged with withholding information about her son’s participation in the Syrian revolution. She ended up paralyzed and detained in a small room in the hospital for 11 months, suffering psychological torture and beatings. Her daughter, Baraa had an abortion amid a lack of basic health care in the hospital.
The family was then transferred to Al-Khatib branch in the capital, with security personnel carrying the mother from the hospital in a military blanket. After 8 months, they were transferred to the terrorist wing in Adra central prison and Um Mohamed’s health declined even further. After 15 days, the family stood before the military court, where, in exchange for her freedom, the mother was asked to extradite her own son. In the end, the three women were returned to Adra for an unspecified duration.
In April 2016, after 6 months in the prison, a relative paid 15 million SYP ($30,000) to get them out of detention, later they left to Turkey.
According to the International Conscience Movement, an NGO, more than 13,500 women have been jailed since the Syrian conflict began, while more than 7,000 women remain in detention, where they are subjected to torture, rape and sexual violence.
Syrian opposition sources said that more than 500,000 prisoners remain inside the prisons of the Syrian regime.
The nine-year-old war has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and forced 13 million people from their homes, half of whom have left their shattered homeland.
Zaman Al Wasl
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