More than 13,000 inmates hanged by Syrian authorities, Amnesty Int’l says

Human Rights Group, Amnesty International is accusing the Syrian government of pursuing a “policy of extermination” after it revealed that as many as 13,000 people were hanged in five years at a notorious Syrian prison near Damascus.

A damning report tagged “Human Slaughterhouse: Mass hanging and extermination at Saydnaya prison,” based on interviews with 84 witnesses, including guards, detainees, and judges was released by Amnesty on Tuesday.

The report revealed that at least once a week between 2011 and 2015, groups of up to 50 people were taken out of their prison cells for arbitrary trials, beaten, then hanged “in the middle of the night and in total secrecy”.

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“Throughout this process, they remain blindfolded. They do not know when or how they will die until the noose was placed around their necks,” the report said.

Most of the victims were civilians believed to be opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“They kept them [hanging] there for 10 to 15 minutes,” a former judge who witnessed the executions said.

“For the young ones, their weight wouldn’t kill them. The officers’ assistants would pull them down and break their necks,” he said.

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