Twin brothers tell of torture ordeal in Syrian army prison

Naked on the cold concrete floor of the interrogation room, hands tied behind his back, a blindfold covering his eyes, the boy heard the slow footsteps of the Syrian intelligence officer.

Blood filled his mouth and his jaw smarted from the punch he had just received. The pained screams of his twin brother could be heard in the next room.

“How many protests have you been to? Why do you want to hurt our leader?” The interrogator’s voice came menacing from the darkness. He felt the assistants roughly clamp electric cables to his toes and push him back towards the pool of water.

The 18-year-old twins, Ashraf and Majed, whose names have been changed for their protection, were arrested at their farmhouse in the Damascus countryside as they camped by a lake in October. Accused of owning large speakers that might be used in anti-government demonstrations, they were taken to an intelligence base where they were detained, questioned and tortured over two months.

The Scotsman spoke to the twins the day they were released. In the living room of a secret hideout in Douma in the Damascus suburbs, the boys sat on a mattress, thin and pallid. The twins are two of several thousand people human rights groups say have been tortured by Syrian authorities since anti-government demonstrations began in mid-March.

The account they gave is reflected in the testimonies collected by Human Rights Watch for a December report that found “rampant use of torture” by Syrian security services.

The twins were first taken to the political intelligence unit in Damascus. “We were kept in a tiny cell so full, that people could only stand. For four days we were not allowed to sleep. The cell was filthy, freezing, and the food was terrible,” said Ashraf.

“The guards treated us like enemies,” added Majed.

“Sometimes, in a different cell, we were made to sit cross legged with our backs straight. One man slouched, so they made him stand naked from six in the morning to 11 at night.”

In separate rooms the boys were stripped naked, and made to sit on the cold, concrete floor, their hands tied behind their backs, their eyes blindfolded.

“I never saw my torturer. The voice asked about the protests, names of protestors, they even wanted to know how many funerals of people killed in the protests we had been to,” said Ashraf. If the answer was not satisfactory, or to “soften” them up, they were made to stand in a 10cm deep pool of water, with wires attached to them to administer electric shocks.

“The voltage was so powerful it sent me flying across the room,” said Majed.

“They asked about you Bashar,” said Ashraf, addressing the activist who hosted The Scotsman during the trip. “They seemed to know how you moved, what you do – I had so many electric shocks because of you.”

In Douma, more than 1,800 people are imprisoned or are missing, a local woman activist estimated.

“Nearly everyone in Douma has been taken,” she added with a wry smile, suggesting everyone in the city is against the regime.