The story of a building that experienced terror in Syria.. Screams of torture lasted 50 years!
The British Observer newspaper published a new report in which it told the story of a Syrian man who faced great fears in his country because he stayed in a building close to a torture center, specifically in the Syrian city of Homs.
The report says that fear prevailed The life of the Syrian citizen Taha was destroyed for 50 years because of the Security Directorate building next to his house in Homs, which made him witness unspeakable horrors since his childhood, as the screams of the tortured reached him from their cells to the third floor, where he and his family often sat in complete silence, unable to Do anything, according to the newspaper.
Systematic repression
However, Tadmari stressed that his family had no choice but to stay to avoid arousing suspicion from the security apparatus, and most of the officers were from the Alawite sect, a major support base for the rule of the Baath Party regime, according to the report of the newspaper issued by the Guardian Media Group.
The Security Directorate was not just a building, but a machine for monitoring and controlling, and Alawite security officials would knock on Tadmuri’s door every two months to ask for all the details of the family’s life, including who visited them, where their children were, and even information about any plumber or carpenter who entered their home, Tadmuri said. In this regard, “information was their weapon of choice.”
According to the report, security officials were shouting angrily at the family, ordering them to close their windows, to prevent them from seeing or hearing the violations taking place near their apartment, and the roof was off-limits to residents.
Revolution
In 2011, after the spark of the Syrian revolution took off and reached Homs, Tadmuri began to see a “new and terrible” development from the window. Almost every Friday, buses and taxis would drop hundreds of terrified passengers, with their clothes covering their heads, at the entrance to the building.
Tadmari knew some young men who attended Al-Furqan Mosque in the neighborhood, and who went out to the street every Friday to demonstrate, and he said with tears in his eyes and admiration in his voice: “I used to see them, but because of my fear for my family and children, I did not go with them, and they were not afraid, but I was.” “I cry for them every Friday, knowing what they will face.”
He stated that he saw several times about 300 people in handcuffs and on their way to torture rooms. He said that when the number of detainees exceeded the building’s capacity, they were transferred to a nearby military prison.
While the family’s apartment survived the bombing that destroyed a large part of the city, visits by security officials continued, and one of the officials – Abu Abdo – was monitoring the family closely, and he even asked Tadmori to submit a report on the visits of United Nations employees. Tadmori laughed when he remembered how he asked him. Abu Abdo once told a relative of his who died decades ago.
No one is safe
In 2013, the regime reached Tadmari’s family, as his brother Firas was arrested while working in a building where an anti-government demonstration was filmed. After a phone call with him, the family waited for his return all night, and Tadmuri and his father went to meet Hossam Louqa, the head of the directorate who was known for his bad reputation and who was later punished for torturing opponents. They asked him about Firas, and he told them not to worry, because they were his neighbors.
According to the report, the family later discovered that Luke had lied to him, as Firas stayed in the directorate for two weeks, then was sent to a terrifying underground facility in Damascus known as Branch 215, and they did not hear anything from him after that, and the family’s efforts to search for Firas after the fall of the regime did not lead to anything. There was no result, which destroyed their hopes of finding him alive.
The end of repression
The collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024 led to the end of the threat to the life of this family and it became a part of it.
Tadmuri watched from his balcony as the officials fortified the security complex with sandbags and armed guards, and how they then fled as the opposition forces advanced. The neighbors stormed the complex and freed the only detainee they found in the prison.
But Tadmori has not yet entered the building, despite his happiness, for fear that it might be a bomb, and he hopes that the new government will use the security complex for something constructive. (Al Jazeera Net)
