AL-BAB, syria — An elementary-school hallway in this north Syrian city is now a prison.
Behind a padlocked gate sit 10 men, accused by the rebels who have taken over the city of theft, thuggery and spying for the regime of President Bashar Assad.
The head guard says the prisoners get three meals a day and one shower. All will be tried by the town’s new legal council, and no one is mistreated, he says.
One of the suspects, however, has two black eyes.
“I flipped my motorcycle,” he said, speaking within earshot of his captors.
An accused regime informer has a bruised face and red stripes on his arm, as if he has been lashed with a cord.
“I fell down,” he said.
The Al-Bab prison is one of the many lockups rebels fighting against Assad’s regime have set up after seizing areas from government forces.
These facilities report to no national or regional authority, causing concern among rights groups and leading to a wide range of practices.
One badly bruised captive told Human Rights Watch he had been blindfolded and beaten daily for three weeks. Elsewhere, reporters from The Associated Press saw former regime soldiers frolicking in a swimming pool with their captors.
It is impossible to determine the number of rebel detention centers, but interviews with rebel commanders, activists and captives and human-rights researches in north Syria — plus visits to three facilities — provide a window into the issue.
Little evidence has surfaced that rebels are practicing the widespread, institutionalized torture that human-rights groups accuse Assad’s regime of. But many prisoners bear bruises and scars from beatings and lashings.
A number of rebel groups acknowledge sending prisoners thought to have blood on their hands to the firing squad. Others realize the living are worth more than the dead and seek “blood money” from captives’ families or try to exchange them for rebels held by the regime.
The captors also vary. Running north Syria’s largest known rebel prison, in the town of Marea, is a barrel-shaped former truck driver nicknamed “Jumbo” who has a bullet lodged in his head from a gunfight with government troops. Others are run by civilian councils of lawyers, teachers and Muslim clerics who administer a mix of Syrian and Islamic law.
The lack of oversight worries human-rights groups.
“It is extremely important that the opposition leadership send a strong message that the kinds of abuses we’ve seen are not acceptable and that those committing them will be held accountable,” said Anna Neistat of Human Rights Watch, who is researching rebel prisons.
North Syria’s two largest prisons are run by the Revolutionary Council of Aleppo and the Countryside, which is closely linked to the area’s largest rebel grouping, the Islamist Tawheed Brigade. The group holds hundreds of prisoners.
About 60 people have been through the elementary-school prison this month, said Mohammed Nouh, the head guard. A prison office collects testimony from residents, and a judicial council of lawyers and Islamic clerics reviews cases. Most people are released in a few days, Nouh said.
The 10 alleged criminals in the prison one recent afternoon had all been caught in the last week, Nouh said.
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Turkey secures hostage’s release • BEIRUT — Turkey on Saturday secured the release of one of 11 Shiite Lebanese hostages held for three months by Syrian rebels, a move that underlined Ankara’s growing influence in the Arab world. In Syria itself, activists reported the discovery of up to 50 bodies in a Damascus suburb stormed by government forces after heavy clashes last week.
Hussein Ali Omar, 60, crossed into Turkey after his release and later arrived in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, aboard a private Turkish jet.
“Our treatment (by the Syrian captors) was excellent and the Lebanese (hostages) are well,” Omar said.
He was dressed in a white shirt and a red tie bearing an image of the Turkish flag that he said was “in recognition of Turkey’s efforts to free me.”
In Syria, activists reported clashes between rebels and government troops as well as shelling in different areas, including the northern province of Aleppo, the district of Idlib, the eastern region of Deir el-Zour and Daraa in the south.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said between 40 and 50 bodies were discovered Saturday in Daraya. It did not say whether the bodies belonged to civilians or rebel fighters. The Associated Press
