‘SLAUGHTERHOUSE’

Report: 13,000 Hanged in Syria Prison Since 2011

Extrajudicial executions.

Syrian officials have killed as many as 13,000 people since 2011 through mass hangings at the Saydnaya Prison, known locally as “the slaughterhouse,” according to Amnesty International. In a report released Tuesday, Amnesty said 20 to 50 people are hanged each week in killings approved by senior government officials. The report called the deaths a “calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution.” “The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign, authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent within the Syrian population,” said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty’s regional office in Beirut. Amnesty International has also allegedly recorded at least 35 different methods of torture in the country, which it says has increased since 2011.