Latest news with #Hafezal-Assad
New Straits Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Straits Times
Assad-era political prisoner wants justice
SYRIAN fighter pilot Ragheed Tatari was 26 when he was arrested. Now 70, the country's longest-serving political prisoner is finally free after Bashar al-Assad's fall, seeking justice and accountability. Tatari, arrested in 1981 and sentenced to life behind bars, was among scores of prisoners who walked free when longtime ruler Assad was overthrown on Dec 8. He has made it out alive after 43 years in jail, but tens of thousands of Syrian families are still searching for their loved ones who disappeared long ago in Syria's hellish prison system. "I came close to death under torture," said Tatari in his small Damascus apartment. Since a military field court gave him a life sentence for "collaborating with foreign countries" — an accusation he denies — Tatari was moved from one prison to another, first under late president Hafez al-Assad and then his son Bashar who succeeded him in 2000. Showing old pictures of him in his pilot uniform, Tatari said he was not seeking revenge, but stressed that "everyone must be held accountable for their crimes". More than two million Syrians were jailed under the Assad dynasty's rule, half of them after anti-government protests in 2011 escalated into civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. The Britain-based monitor says around 200,000 died in custody. Diab Serriya, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison, said Tatari was "the longest-serving political prisoner in Syria and the Middle East". Rights group Amnesty International has called the notorious Saydnaya prison outside Damascus a "human slaughterhouse". Tatari had been detained there, but he said his 15 years in the Palmyra prison in the Syrian desert were the most difficult. The Palmyra facility operated "without any discipline, any laws and any humanity", said Tatari. Detainees were "not afraid of torture — we wished for death", he added. "Everything that has been said about torture in Palmyra... is an understatement. A guard could kill a prisoner if he was displeased with him," said Tatari. In 1980, Palmyra witnessed a massacre of hundreds detainees, gunned down by helicopters or executed in their cells after a failed assassination attempt on Hafez al-Assad. Tatari said he was completely disconnected from the outside world there, only learning of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union through a prisoner who had returned from a hospital visit. In Sweida prison in the south, where Tatari was transferred after the 2011 revolt began, some inmates had phones that they would keep hidden from the guards. "The cell phone gets you out of prison, it makes you feel alive," he said, recalling how he used to conceal his device in a hole dug in his cell. But after his phone was discovered, he was transferred to a prison in Tartus — his final detention facility before gaining freedom. Tatari was one of several military officers who were opposed to Syria's intervention in Lebanon in 1976, and to the violent repression in the early 1980s of the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria's main opposition force at the time. After two of his fellow pilots defected and fled to Jordan in 1980, he escaped to Egypt and then on to Jordan. But he returned when security forces began harassing his family and was arrested on arrival. His wife was pregnant at the time with their first and only son. For years, the family assumed Tatari was dead, before receiving a proof of life in 1997. It was then that Tatari was finally able to meet his son, then aged 16, under the watchful eye of guards during the family's first authorised prison visit that year. His wife has since died and their son left Syria, having received threats at the start of the protest movement, which had spiralled into war and eventually led to Assad's overthrow.
Nahar Net
5 days ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
After decades in Assad jails, political prisoner wants justice
by Naharnet Newsdesk 05 June 2025, 11:51 Syrian fighter pilot Ragheed Tatari was 26 when he was arrested. Now 70, the country's longest-serving political prisoner is finally free after Bashar al-Assad's fall, seeking justice and accountability. Tatari, arrested in 1981 and sentenced to life behind bars, was among scores of prisoners who walked free when longtime ruler Assad was overthrown on December 8 in an Islamist-led offensive. He has made it out alive after 43 years in jail, but tens of thousands of Syrian families are still searching for their loved ones who disappeared long ago in Syria's hellish prison system. "I came close to death under torture," Tatari told AFP in his small Damascus apartment. Since a military field court gave him a life sentence for "collaborating with foreign countries" -- an accusation he denies -- Tatari was moved from one prison to another, first under late president Hafez al-Assad and then his son Bashar who succeeded him in 2000. Showing old pictures of him in his pilot uniform, Tatari said he was not seeking revenge, but stressed that "everyone must be held accountable for their crimes". "We do not want anyone to be imprisoned" without due process, said Tatari. More than two million Syrians were jailed under the Assad dynasty's rule, half of them after anti-government protests in 2011 escalated into civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. The Britain-based monitor says around 200,000 died in custody. Diab Serriya, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison, said that Tatari was "the longest-serving political prisoner in Syria and the Middle East". Rights group Amnesty International has called the notorious Saydnaya prison outside Damascus a "human slaughterhouse". Tatari had been detained there, but he said his 15 years in the Palmyra prison in the Syrian desert were the most difficult. - 'Wished for death' - The Palmyra facility operated "without any discipline, any laws and any humanity", Tatari said. Detainees were "not afraid of torture -- we wished for death", he added. "Everything that has been said about torture in Palmyra... is an understatement." "A guard could kill a prisoner if he was displeased with him," Tatari said, adding that inmates were forced under torture to say phrases like "Hafez al-Assad is your god", although he refused to do so. In 1980, Palmyra witnessed a massacre of hundreds of mostly Islamist detainees, gunned down by helicopters or executed in their cells after a failed assassination attempt on Hafez al-Assad. Tatari said he was completely disconnected from the outside world there, only learning of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union through a prisoner who had returned from a hospital visit. In Sweida prison in the south, where Tatari was transferred after the 2011 revolt began, some inmates had phones that they would keep hidden from the guards. "The cell phone gets you out of prison, it makes you feel alive," he said, recalling how he used to conceal his device in a hole dug in his cell. But after his phone was discovered, he was transferred to a prison in Tartus -- his final detention facility before gaining freedom. - Dreams of escape - Tatari was one of several military officers who were opposed to Syria's intervention in Lebanon in 1976, and to the violent repression in the early 1980s of the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria's main opposition force at the time. "Many of us were against involving the army in political operations," he said. After two of his fellow pilots defected and fled to Jordan in 1980, he escaped to Egypt and then on to Jordan. But he returned when security forces began harassing his family and was arrested on arrival. His wife was pregnant at the time with their first and only son. For years, the family assumed Tatari was dead, before receiving a proof of life in 1997 after paying bribes, a common practice under the Assads' rule. It was then that Tatari was finally able to meet his son, then aged 16, under the watchful eye of guards during the family's first authorized prison visit that year. "I was afraid... I ended the meeting after 15 minutes," Tatari said. His wife has since died and their son left Syria, having received threats at the start of the protest movement, which had spiraled into war and eventually led to Assad's overthrow. During his time behind bars, Tatari said he "used to escape prison with my thoughts, daydreams and drawing". "The regime getting toppled overnight was beyond my dreams... No one expected it to happen so quickly."
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
After decades in Assad jails, political prisoner wants justice
Syrian fighter pilot Ragheed Tatari was 26 when he was arrested. Now 70, the country's longest-serving political prisoner is finally free after Bashar al-Assad's fall, seeking justice and accountability. Tatari, arrested in 1981 and sentenced to life behind bars, was among scores of prisoners who walked free when longtime ruler Assad was overthrown on December 8 in an Islamist-led offensive. He has made it out alive after 43 years in jail, but tens of thousands of Syrian families are still searching for their loved ones who disappeared long ago in Syria's hellish prison system. "I came close to death under torture," Tatari told AFP in his small Damascus apartment. Since a military field court gave him a life sentence for "collaborating with foreign countries" -- an accusation he denies -- Tatari was moved from one prison to another, first under late president Hafez al-Assad and then his son Bashar who succeeded him in 2000. Showing old pictures of him in his pilot uniform, Tatari said he was not seeking revenge, but stressed that "everyone must be held accountable for their crimes". "We do not want anyone to be imprisoned" without due process, said Tatari. More than two million Syrians were jailed under the Assad dynasty's rule, half of them after anti-government protests in 2011 escalated into civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. The Britain-based monitor says around 200,000 died in custody. Diab Serriya, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison, said that Tatari was "the longest-serving political prisoner in Syria and the Middle East". Rights group Amnesty International has called the notorious Saydnaya prison outside Damascus a "human slaughterhouse". Tatari had been detained there, but he said his 15 years in the Palmyra prison in the Syrian desert were the most difficult. - 'Wished for death' - The Palmyra facility operated "without any discipline, any laws and any humanity", Tatari said. Detainees were "not afraid of torture -- we wished for death", he added. "Everything that has been said about torture in Palmyra... is an understatement." "A guard could kill a prisoner if he was displeased with him," Tatari said, adding that inmates were forced under torture to say phrases like "Hafez al-Assad is your god", although he refused to do so. In 1980, Palmyra witnessed a massacre of hundreds of mostly Islamist detainees, gunned down by helicopters or executed in their cells after a failed assassination attempt on Hafez al-Assad. Tatari said he was completely disconnected from the outside world there, only learning of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union through a prisoner who had returned from a hospital visit. In Sweida prison in the south, where Tatari was transferred after the 2011 revolt began, some inmates had phones that they would keep hidden from the guards. "The cell phone gets you out of prison, it makes you feel alive," he said, recalling how he used to conceal his device in a hole dug in his cell. But after his phone was discovered, he was transferred to a prison in Tartus -- his final detention facility before gaining freedom. - Dreams of escape - Tatari was one of several military officers who were opposed to Syria's intervention in Lebanon in 1976, and to the violent repression in the early 1980s of the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria's main opposition force at the time. "Many of us were against involving the army in political operations," he said. After two of his fellow pilots defected and fled to Jordan in 1980, he escaped to Egypt and then on to Jordan. But he returned when security forces began harassing his family and was arrested on arrival. His wife was pregnant at the time with their first and only son. For years, the family assumed Tatari was dead, before receiving a proof of life in 1997 after paying bribes, a common practice under the Assads' rule. It was then that Tatari was finally able to meet his son, then aged 16, under the watchful eye of guards during the family's first authorised prison visit that year. "I was afraid... I ended the meeting after 15 minutes," Tatari said. His wife has since died and their son left Syria, having received threats at the start of the protest movement, which had spiralled into war and eventually led to Assad's overthrow. During his time behind bars, Tatari said he "used to escape prison with my thoughts, daydreams and drawing". "The regime getting toppled overnight was beyond my dreams... No one expected it to happen so quickly." at/nad/ami/cms
France 24
5 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
After decades in Assad jails, political prisoner wants justice
Tatari, arrested in 1981 and sentenced to life behind bars, was among scores of prisoners who walked free when longtime ruler Assad was overthrown on December 8 in an Islamist-led offensive. He has made it out alive after 43 years in jail, but tens of thousands of Syrian families are still searching for their loved ones who disappeared long ago in Syria's hellish prison system. "I came close to death under torture," Tatari told AFP in his small Damascus apartment. Since a military field court gave him a life sentence for "collaborating with foreign countries" -- an accusation he denies -- Tatari was moved from one prison to another, first under late president Hafez al-Assad and then his son Bashar who succeeded him in 2000. Showing old pictures of him in his pilot uniform, Tatari said he was not seeking revenge, but stressed that "everyone must be held accountable for their crimes". "We do not want anyone to be imprisoned" without due process, said Tatari. More than two million Syrians were jailed under the Assad dynasty's rule, half of them after anti-government protests in 2011 escalated into civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. The Britain-based monitor says around 200,000 died in custody. Diab Serriya, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison, said that Tatari was "the longest-serving political prisoner in Syria and the Middle East". Rights group Amnesty International has called the notorious Saydnaya prison outside Damascus a "human slaughterhouse". Tatari had been detained there, but he said his 15 years in the Palmyra prison in the Syrian desert were the most difficult. 'Wished for death' The Palmyra facility operated "without any discipline, any laws and any humanity", Tatari said. Detainees were "not afraid of torture -- we wished for death", he added. "Everything that has been said about torture in Palmyra... is an understatement." "A guard could kill a prisoner if he was displeased with him," Tatari said, adding that inmates were forced under torture to say phrases like "Hafez al-Assad is your god", although he refused to do so. In 1980, Palmyra witnessed a massacre of hundreds of mostly Islamist detainees, gunned down by helicopters or executed in their cells after a failed assassination attempt on Hafez al-Assad. Tatari said he was completely disconnected from the outside world there, only learning of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union through a prisoner who had returned from a hospital visit. In Sweida prison in the south, where Tatari was transferred after the 2011 revolt began, some inmates had phones that they would keep hidden from the guards. "The cell phone gets you out of prison, it makes you feel alive," he said, recalling how he used to conceal his device in a hole dug in his cell. But after his phone was discovered, he was transferred to a prison in Tartus -- his final detention facility before gaining freedom. Dreams of escape Tatari was one of several military officers who were opposed to Syria's intervention in Lebanon in 1976, and to the violent repression in the early 1980s of the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria's main opposition force at the time. "Many of us were against involving the army in political operations," he said. After two of his fellow pilots defected and fled to Jordan in 1980, he escaped to Egypt and then on to Jordan. But he returned when security forces began harassing his family and was arrested on arrival. His wife was pregnant at the time with their first and only son. For years, the family assumed Tatari was dead, before receiving a proof of life in 1997 after paying bribes, a common practice under the Assads' rule. It was then that Tatari was finally able to meet his son, then aged 16, under the watchful eye of guards during the family's first authorised prison visit that year. "I was afraid... I ended the meeting after 15 minutes," Tatari said. His wife has since died and their son left Syria, having received threats at the start of the protest movement, which had spiralled into war and eventually led to Assad's overthrow. During his time behind bars, Tatari said he "used to escape prison with my thoughts, daydreams and drawing". "The regime getting toppled overnight was beyond my dreams... No one expected it to happen so quickly." © 2025 AFP
Gulf Today
22-05-2025
- Gulf Today
Route to recovery
In the good old days, it used to take three hours to travel in a service taxi from Beirut to Damascus. We swooped up Mount Lebanon along the wide Damascus highway through the towns of Aley, Bhamdoun and Sofar before slipping down to the fertile Bekaa Valley and beginning the second climb up the barren Anti-Lebanon range. Down again to the Bekaa Valley and Chatura where we halted at the Laiterie Massabaki for a tubular sandwich of labneh sprinkled with zaatar wrapped in mountain bread before continuing to the border post at Masnaa. There our passports were examined briefly by immigration, and we were waved through the wide no-mans land until we reached sentry post at Jdeidat Yabous in Syria. There again our passports were reviewed while an officer opened the car's boot and slammed it shut with a thud. Life was much simpler without the hassle of visas. Carved out of Greater Syria by France, Lebanon retained deep ties to Syria despite occasional spats. Travel and commerce flowed easily. Apricot and orchards bracketed the road as we neared Damascus which vies with Aleppo by claiming to be the oldest city in the world. The Lebanese taxi dropped us off at the western edge of the city where we picked up a Syrian taxi to enter the broad boulevards the French bequeathed to this splendid city. My Syrian best friend Sawsan remarked on the cleanliness of the streets – in contrast to littered Beirut. Years earlier, her father had been governor of Damascus district and had tolerated neither litter nor corruption. We stayed in her family's modest three-bedroom home with a garden tended by her mother. Her engineer father earned a living in Saudi Arabia. So much has happened to Damascus, Aleppo, Syria and the region since then. Wars with Israel and the rise of the Palestinian resistance. In Syria coups and counter coups with martial music heralding 'Communique Number One.' The Cold War between East and West aligned Syria with the Soviet Union. The advent in 1970 of domineering air force chief Hafez al-Assad whose son Bashar ruled from 2000 until Dec. 8, 2024. The 2003, US war with Iraq and the emergence of Daesh and similar movements. With the new millennium, the Assad government began to transition away from a Soviet style central economy and in 2010 Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Dardari formally proclaimed the Social-Free-Market system. The free market was implemented but not social programmes benefitting the poor who dwelled on the edges of the cities. During that year, Syria had an influx of 8 million tourists, 11 million were predicted for 2011 by the ministry of tourism. The ministry was training Syrians on hotel management and customer service to gear up to become a major tourist destination for Europeans and Asians as well as Arabs from the Gulf. In March 2011, Syrians joined the Arab Spring protesters calling for economic and political reform and were met by a harsh crack-down which led to years of civil conflict and division. Syria was divided into three regions: the northwestern Idlib district held by Turkey-backed rebels, the northeastern area, amounting to 25 per cent of the country, which had become an autonomous zone protected by the US-sponsored Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, and areas loosely under the Assad government in Damascus. Additionally, the Druze who were the majority in Suweyda district ran their own affairs without splitting from Damascus. Can Syria return to the good old days? Comfortable in itself and a stable centre in an increasingly challenged region. The old Syria is a Syria to strive for not the Syria of strife. The first positive move was Donald Trump's decision to lift punitive US sanctions on Syria now that the Assads are gone and a interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has assumed the top office. A great deal depends on Sharaa himself who has had to change from being commander of Hay 'at Tahrir al-Sham, the fundamentalist revolutionary movement backed by Turkey that ousted the Assads. He is an unlikely figure to unite Syrians in the monumental effort to reconstitute Syria as a secular state where Sunnis, Shias, Druze, Kurds, Circassians, and Alawites are represented in governance, reconstruction, and economic renewal. He will need the backing of Europe and the US in this, Syria's greatest challenge in the modern era. Sharaa and his team must fuse Syria into a unit enjoyding sovereignty and territorial integrity. Syria's forever enemy, Israel will do its best to act as spoiler as Israel sees a strong, confident Syria as a competitor for US attention. Ever since it emerged in 1948, Israel has wanted Syria to break into sectarian mini states. Syria's central bank governor Abdulkader Husrieh told 'Al Monitor' website that the end of sanctions imposed by the US and Europe could 'open doors for Syria to rebuild and re-engage with the global community in a meaningful way... This announcement, while just one step, feels like it could be the beginning of something positive.' Before taking up this job, Husrieh was a partner at Ernst & Young accountants, based in Canada and the United Arab Emirates. Once sanctions are lifted, Syria could gain access to the international financial system. unlock frozen assets and enable Syria to deal with global financial institutions, he stated. This would include the World Bank as Saudi Arabia and Qatar have repaid Syria's debt of $15.5 million. 'We are pleased that the clearance of Syria's arrears will allow the World Bank Group to reengage with the country and address the development needs of the Syrian people,' the bank announced. 'After years of conflict, Syria is on a path to recovery and development.' The bank's priority plan will focus on restoring electricity, a driver of reconstruction and development. The International Monetary Fund is also becoming engaged in the effort to reconstitute Syrian financial institutions. The UAE's DP World has signed a $800 million memorandum of understanding to develop, manage, and operate a multitask terminal at Tartous port. Syria counts on wealthy Syrian expatriates to return and invest in local businesses and Gulf states to help finance Syria's war-damaged infrastructure. This can only take place when Sharaa restores security, initiates political reforms which will ensure participation of all communities, and reassures external actors that Syria is on the route to recovery. Photo: TNS
