A dark chapter in the history of humanity
At Tadmor Military Prison, I watched many videos on YouTube from the Syrian portal. I am preparing the article by combining the information provided by the BBC and the only documentary made on this prison (Tadmor - 2016) – Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim, as well as the information obtained from ChatGPT. It took more than three days to prepare it, so you can tell me how you liked the article.
Tadmor Military Prison stood in a corner of the desert near the ancient city of Palmyra (Palmyra) in Syria. The reason for saying that this prison no longer exists, only its ruins remain.
Although it looks like an ordinary structure from the outside, it was a hellish world inside. This is where the hellish “The Tadmor Massacre” of history took place.
This prison is called “The most oppressive place on Earth.”
What I found in my research on history is that an old military base built by the British in 1958 was transformed into Tadmor Prison by the Syrian government in 1966.
However, its terrible chapter began after Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970.
After that, it became a hell for political prisoners, a graveyard for Hafez al-Assad's political opponents. Not only Syrians, but also foreigners were imprisoned in this prison. Anyone who opposed the government was sent here.
According to a former prisoner, “Tadmor was not a prison; it was a place where time and mercy died together.”
The rules of Tadmor were, prisoners could never look the guards in the eye. Talking was forbidden. They were beaten even while sleeping, as if sleep was part of the punishment. The floor inside the prison was slippery with blood.
One surviving prisoner wrote, “It was a blessing to be able to cry there, because everyone’s tears had dried up.”
Many prisoners were kept alone for weeks after being tortured, in dark rooms, without light or air. When someone died, the body was dragged away— But no one knew where they were being buried.
Life in Tadmor Military Prison was like walking through a minefield—where death could strike at any moment. The reason could be torture, the cruelty of the guards, illness, or sudden execution. I heard a former prisoner describe it in the video, saying, “When it was time to cut my hair, three or four guards would come and shout—‘Kneel down.’ We would kneel down.
They would shave my head with an old hand-operated machine. They would hit my head repeatedly with that machine, causing our heads to bleed. Then they would shave my eyebrows, and finally my eyelashes. The most painful thing was when they would pluck out my eyelashes.” These were the regular tortures of the prison.
In addition, torture sessions were scheduled for prisoners every Monday and Thursday, and it was equally terrible for child prisoners. At the same time, 10 prisoners were hanged at a time on 45 gallows.
In 1981, 700 and 400 prisoners died in the prison from cholera and tuberculosis, respectively. In a video on the Syrian portal, a surviving prisoner was quoted as saying exactly this - the guards would say, "You have reached your final destination. There is no God here. God is forbidden to enter Tadmor.
We are God. We give life, we take life."
These words extinguished the last light of God and hope in the prisoners' minds. When some prisoners of Tadmor began to speak to the international media after 2001, the world first learned the true nature of this hell. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the UN Human Rights Council all declared it an "institutionalized torture chamber."
Now let's talk about "The Tadmor Massacre". June 27, 1980, was one of the most horrific mornings in Syrian history. On that day, a massacre took place that shook the conscience of not only Syria but also humanity. This happened on the orders of President Hafez al-Assad and his brother Rifaat al-Assad. This horrific massacre was carried out in retaliation for an attack on the president by a security guard just a day earlier. According to research and eyewitnesses, on that day, the president's army entered the prisoners' dormitories directly and opened fire indiscriminately. They also threw grenades and hand grenades. In just a few hours, about 2000 prisoners were killed, including teachers, students, political leaders, journalists, and even ordinary citizens. The dead were later buried in mass graves. No one in the outside world knew about this massacre, but in 1981, some Syrian officers, who were captured in Jordan, confessed to their involvement in the massacre. Only then did the world learn of the horrors of Tadmor.
In 2001, the prison was officially closed, and the prisoners were transferred to the newly built Sednaya prison. That too was no less terrible than Tadmor. I will not go into that for now. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch,
“Tadmor Prison was a living hell. Here, humanity died slowly, systematically.”
Their reports say— The torture at Tadmor Military Prison was not an isolated incident; It was a planned form of state terrorism. In 2015, when ISIS captured the city of Palmyra, they symbolically destroyed Tadmor Prison. Their argument was—it was a symbol of torture.
However, even by destroying it, they could not erase the memory. In 2017, some of the survivors formed the “Association of Tadmor Survivors.”
They say, “We do not want anyone to forget how a nation was silenced through fear. We have survived Tadmor so that the world knows that fear can never rule.”
Tadmor Military Prison is not only a dark chapter in the history of Syria, but it is also a dark chapter in the history of humanity.
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