\n<\/p>\n
Damascus, Syria<\/strong> \u2013 Fouad Naal spent 21 years in prison under the regime of Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n He remained in the notorious Sednaya and Adra prisons until December 8, 2024, which was not only his liberation but also the liberation of Syria from al-Assad\u2019s rule, he told Al Jazeera a day before the anniversary.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Tall and slim with a long salt and pepper beard, Naal, 52, speaks with enthusiasm and moves fluidly despite his years in confinement.<\/p>\n He was a practising imam before his arrest and holds his faith closely, he explains in the salon of his modest apartment in Damascus\u2019s Muhajreen neighbourhood, a 10-minute walk from al-Assad\u2019s former residence.<\/p>\n On December 8, Syria celebrated the first anniversary of al-Assad fleeing Damascus for Moscow. His flight meant the end of five decades of al-Assad family rule, known for its brutality and ruthlessness.<\/p>\n Hundreds of thousands of people have disappeared in the al-Assad prison network. Even more experienced the brutal conditions and were left with physical or mental ailments, traumas or severe health conditions.<\/p>\n Naal said he was summoned by the regime \u201chundreds of times\u201d before his arrest and imprisonment in 2004 for issuing a fatwa, a religious opinion, saying Syrians shouldn\u2019t go fight the United States invasion in Iraq.<\/p>\n He and many others believed the Syrian state was encouraging Syrians to go to Iraq to fight against the US military, which had invaded the country in 2003.<\/p>\n Many Muslims Naal knew decided to go, but never made it to Iraq. The buses that had been provided to take them across the border into Iraq were bombed before leaving Syrian territory, he said.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Naal suspected the Syrian state was behind the attack on the convoy and put out his fatwa.<\/p>\n He was arrested with his wife and then-four-year-old daughter and given a life sentence. He said the regime accused him of planning to assassinate al-Assad and several other senior regime figures.<\/p>\n The charges were fake, he said, but he admitted to them under coercion to free his daughter and wife. He was sent to Sednaya, where he was held in what in later years would become known as the \u201cRed Prison\u201d.<\/p>\n He passed the time working out, reading and studying law. In 2005, after a full year in jail, he was allowed monthly visits.<\/p>\n Conditions in Sednaya were difficult. He recalled a time when his eyelid was inflamed but medicine was withheld. The prisoners were also not allowed to pray in groups or read the Quran together, he said.<\/p>\n Still, he never gave up hope of leaving prison. \u201cI had a bag packed, ready to go, every single day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI always thought: \u2018Tomorrow, I will get out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n After Naal had been in Sednaya for seven years, the Syrian uprising began.<\/p>\n He and his fellow prisoners had been following the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya but didn\u2019t believe a similar event would happen in Syria.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really surprising that in Syria this is happening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were really great moments of joy. I was happy with the beginning of the revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2012, Naal said he was transferred from Sednaya to Adra Central Prison on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus, where he and other Muslims were put into a special political wing.<\/p>\n It seemed as though Sednaya was being emptied to receive Syrians who were being rounded up for opposing the regime.<\/p>\n In Adra, the conditions were easier. Naal was placed with other alleged Islamists. They could pray. They were granted weekly visits during which they got news of the outside world.<\/p>\n \u201cWithin a month of the first visits, everyone in the prison had one or two phones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the prison administration in Adra was afraid of Naal and the other prisoners due to rumours that had spread about them. One day, a police officer approached him to ask about them. He was named Khadr, and Naal said he later defected and joined the opposition<\/p>\n \u201cHe said: \u2018Can I ask you a question, sheikh?\u2019 I told him: \u2018Please.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cHe actually asked me if it were true that we used to cut off the heads of officers in Sednaya and play football with them.\u201d<\/p>\n On December 7, 2024, Naal said he and his fellow inmates knew anti-Assad forces were heading their way. The excitement was palpable, and some prisoners suggested trying to break out.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople couldn\u2019t bear it any more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n By now, the prisoners knew that Aleppo had been liberated and were eagerly anticipating the rebels\u2019 arrival in Homs, Syria\u2019s third-largest city.<\/p>\n Naal was awoken by the smell of coffee being made by his fellow prisoners sometime in the wee hours of December 8, 2024. The prisoners were anxious but excited.<\/p>\n At one point, Naal rang a bell that alerted the guards that a prisoner was in need, but no one responded. He rang again and, again, nothing.<\/p>\n Although swearing was forbidden in the prison, Naal began swearing at the guards to try to elicit a response.<\/p>\n \u201cHey, you animals! Open the doors!\u201d<\/p>\n At one point, a prisoner who could see out a window spread the news that the prison guards had lined up and were leaving the prison.<\/p>\n Shouts of \u201cGod is greatest\u201d spread around the prison. The excitement began to grow to the point that Naal said inmates began breaking the prison doors themselves.<\/p>\n But the trauma that some of the prisoners suffered was so high that they were begging others to keep the doors locked, fearing repercussions. Some, he said, hid under their covers.<\/p>\n Others felt there was no turning back and continued breaking down their cell doors.<\/p>\n When they broke out of their cells, the prisoners found guard uniforms scattered on the ground as they ran to the prison\u2019s weapons depot.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople shot in the air out of joy,\u201d Naal said.<\/p>\n The prisoners moved away from the prison and found an abandoned checkpoint. \u201cThere was a pot of mate still boiling on the burning wood,\u201d he said. \u201cGuns were on the ground next to abandoned military uniforms.\u201d<\/p>\n As they continued walking, Naal said he and his fellow prisoners encountered soldiers. Some had removed the tops of their uniforms but kept their pants. Instead of firing at them, the soldiers were telling the prisoners: \u201cWe are with you. We are with you,\u201d Naal recalled.<\/p>\n Naal said the power of this moment appeared to be a gift from the divine.<\/p>\n \u201cYou feel that even a person who has no faith in God Almighty would feel that there is a greater power than himself.\u201d<\/p>\n Naal emerged from prison in much better physical condition than others who were in al-Assad\u2019s prison system for shorter sentences.<\/p>\n \u201cI exercised every day in prison,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m 51 years old,\u201d he said, then corrected himself.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m 52, but I still associate myself with the age I was when I left prison.\u201d<\/p>\n But he has not emerged unscathed. He pointed to the closed door of the small room where he was giving the interview.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like closed places. I don\u2019t like it in general, but I don\u2019t get affected by it psychologically,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to sleep with a closed door. I\u2019m not upset, but I prefer to have it open,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He also said he and many of his fellow prisoners struggled to sleep after they escaped prison because they\u2019d grown accustomed to the quiet there.<\/p>\n Just a couple of days before this interview, he revisited Sednaya Prison with a group of Syrians and Ukrainians. The visit was emotionally fraught for him, but he recognised its importance for finding justice for people in Syria and beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does Bashar al-Assad feel today? He is listening to these words and sitting like a mouse hiding in a burrow in Russia. Even if this burrow is built of gold.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to say that if the prison were a palace of gold, we still wouldn\u2019t want it. We\u2019d rather go home and live for an hour and die hungry for our freedom. Today, he is living the same way,\u201d Naal said.<\/p>\n Before his imprisonment, Naal said he enjoyed doing everything at home. He used to not enjoy going to restaurants. \u201cMy mother raised me not to eat in front of people in case they couldn\u2019t afford what I am eating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d prefer to get food and come back home to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, however, he enjoys leaving the house to walk around his neighbourhood. And he endures going to restaurants because he sees the value in sharing a communal experience in public, something that can\u2019t be done in prison.<\/p>\n He also says it is important to remember that in Syria, \u201cthe children made a revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe one who won the revolution was Hamza al-Khatib,\u201d he said, speaking of the 13-year-old from Deraa who was likely brutally tortured to death by Syrian security forces for taking part in an anti-regime protest in 2011.<\/p>\n He also spoke of the teenagers in Deraa who graffitied a wall with the phrase \u201cYour turn has come, oh doctor.\u201d It referred to al-Assad, who studied ophthalmology in London.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were the trigger of this popular explosion, \u2026 the volcano,\u201d Naal said<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the first nail in the coffin of Bashar al-Assad.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Damascus, Syria \u2013 Fouad Naal spent 21 years in prison under the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He remained in the notorious Sednaya and Adra prisons until December 8, 2024, which was not only his liberation but also the liberation of Syria from al-Assad\u2019s rule, he told Al Jazeera a day before the anniversary. Recommended Stories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"