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About the Sednaya Prison
Located 30 kilometers north of the Syrian capital Damascus, Sednaya Military Prison is known for its tortures of people suspected of opposing the government. There are different social groups who are at risk. These can be groups of labourers, business people, students, bloggers, university professors, lawyers, doctors, activists defending the rights of minority groups, people helping their neighbours or journalists. Detainees may be either men, women or even children.

The prison contains of two buildings with a total of 10 000 – 20 000 detainees and is under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Defense while operated by the Military Police. Detainees have usually spent months or years in detention elsewhere before being transferred to Sednaya. It was not until after the 2011 crisis when this started to happen and concerns both peaceful opponents of the authorities as well as military personnel suspected of opposing the regime. The way in which detainees are being transferred to this facility has been internationally recognized and criticized, mainly by Amnesty International. The transfers usually take place after holding unfair trials at a secret military court. In interviews with Amnesty, prisoners described the trials as sham for lasting only one to three minutes. While some prisoners would be told they were being transferred to a civilian prison when they instead were to be executed, other detainees do not even get to see a judge. They thus do not know the supposed charges against them or how long they are expected to be detained.

Recognized unfair trials
The Syrian Mus’ab al-Hariri belonged to the banned organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, and lived in exile in Saudi Arabia until his return to Syria in 2002 with his mother. She worried that their return would cause problems for her son because of his political stand but the Syrian Embassy in Saudi Arabia had assured her that this would not happen. However, shortly after al-Hariri’s return, he was sentenced by the Syrian Security forces on 24 July 2002. At the time of arrest, he was only 14 years old. Even though the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention announced al-Hariri’s detention as arbitrary, the authorities took no step to amend his situation. The UN Working Group based its announcement on the fact that his trial had failed substantially to meet the measures for international fair trial. Four main issues that were raised were his young age when arrested, that he had been held incommunicado for more than two years, reportedly tortured and that he was sentenced by the SSSC (Supreme State Security Court) in June 2005 to six years in prison despite no substantial evidence. All the SSSC knew was that al-Hariri belonged to the banned Muslim Brotherhood.