Inside a small cell in the notorious Sednaya prison, about 10 women stand in a state of shock, shock and fear, after an armed opposition member opened the cell door and demanded that they come out.

In an attempt to calm them down, the fighter told them, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, we are the revolutionaries. Go out and go wherever you want.”

This short conversation was part of dozens of scenes that spread on social media platforms about the liberation of several prisons and the release of thousands of detainees from the prisons of the ousted President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

But the most shocking scene in the video was when one of the detained women started to leave the cell door and a small child came out in front of her. According to human rights activists, this child was born in detention and has never seen the world.

Celebrations spread throughout the Syrian cities with the news of the liberation of detainees from the prisons of Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Adra, but the greatest joy came after the liberation of detainees from Sednaya prison in the Damascus countryside, which is one of the most fortified Syrian military prisons, and is called the "human slaughterhouse" due to the torture, deprivation and overcrowding inside it, and was nicknamed the "red prison" due to the bloody events that it witnessed during the year 2008.

A previous statement by the Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated that the number of detainees in Syrian prisons from March 2011 to August 2024 amounted to 136,614 people, including 3,698 children and 8,504 women who are still under arrest or forcibly disappeared.

Another video clip showed the joy of one of the detainees after his release, and he swore repeatedly that they were freed from prison hours before the death sentence was carried out against him and dozens of detainees inside.

Pastel Syria

Commenting on the liberation of the prisons, Syrian journalist and activist Qutaiba Yassin said, “The Bastille of Syria has fallen... historic moments, the release of detainees from Sednaya prison, the takbeers were heard from a kilometer away.”

He added in a series of posts on his account on the X website, “Here in each room they put 10 detainees or more. You may not believe it, but we will prove to you soon that tens of thousands of our sons were martyred here in these slaughterhouses.”

He added, "The information coming from Sednaya prison indicates that not all detainees in the prison have been released yet, because there are underground floors and the fighters of the Aggression Deterrence Forces have not been able to know where their doors are yet," calling on anyone with information to provide assistance.

Legal demands

In turn, the director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Fadel Abdul Ghani, said that it is necessary to strike a balance between releasing political detainees who were arbitrarily detained by the Syrian regime and subjected to brutal torture, and the unorganized release of all prisoners, including those who committed crimes.

Abdul Ghani added in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that he fears that the random release of detainees without a thorough review of their files will harm the file of political detainees and weaken the credibility of human rights demands for their rights.

He called for studying the files of detainees carefully, to ensure the distinction between political detainees and criminals involved in acts that threaten community security, suggesting that this be done under independent human rights supervision by assigning independent human rights organizations to supervise the release operations to ensure that justice is achieved.

Abdul Ghani also suggested involving the victims of the detainees or martyrs of the revolution or their representatives in making decisions related to the release of the perpetrators of major crimes against the Syrian people, to ensure respect for their rights.