Syrian regime acknowledges hundreds of custodial deaths

Thousands are thought to have been executed or died under torture in the regime’s prisons

Seven years ago, Islam Dabbas, an engineering student, was thrown in prison for protesting against the Syrian regime. His mother visited him twice, paying bribes to do so, but then the permissions stopped. She heard nothing of her son’s fate ever since.

Until last week, when a relative filed for a regime registration document and was shocked to see that it gave Dabbas’ date of death: January 15, 2013. “The news of his death devastated us, and we wish we had known then,” said his sister, Heba, who lives in exile in Egypt. “Since his arrest, we have lived days of hope and days of despair as uncertainty consumed our minds.”

In recent weeks, hundreds of Syrian families have suddenly learnt that their missing relatives have been registered as dead by the regime. Regime officials have not commented publicly on the new information, said how many people it applied to, or explained how they died.

But the documents appear to be the first public acknowledgement by the regime that hundreds if not thousands of prisoners died in state custody. Analysts believe the quiet changes in status show that President Bashar Al Assad is confident enough of winning the war and remaining in power that he can make that admission without fear of repercussion, prodding the families of the missing to confirm their worst fears and begin to piece their lives back together.

New chapter

“The regime is closing one chapter and starting a new one,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “It is telling the rebels and the activists that this chapter is gone, that whatever hope in some surviving revolutionary spirit has been crushed.”

In some towns, the regime has posted names of the deceased so their relatives can get death certificates. In other cases, families have obtained documents that attest to their relatives’ deaths. In some cases, security officers have informed families personally.

Many of the documents show that the deaths occurred years ago, in the early part of the uprising against Al Assad.

A missing head of household leaves a Syrian family in bureaucratic limbo. Without his death certificate, for example, his widow cannot remarry and his offspring cannot sell property or handle inheritance issues.

But while acknowledging deaths may facilitate such transactions, many doubt that families will accept the news so easily if they hold the regime responsible for their loved ones’ deaths.

“It is difficult to move on when the people who are responsible for these mass disappearances are still there,” said Sara Kayyali, a Syria researcher for Human Rights Watch. “You are looking the perpetrator in the face, and it is not something you can ignore for a very long time.”