17-05-2012<\/p>\n
A prominent journalist has told Amnesty International how Syrian government forces tortured and detained him in deplorable conditions before deporting him to Jordan on Monday.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Salameh Kaileh, a 57-year-old Jordanian national of Palestinian descent, has lived and worked in the Syrian capital Damascus since 1981. <\/p>\n
On 24 April, plain clothes officials from Syria’s Air Force Intelligence arrested him during a raid on his flat in Barzah, a Damascus suburb. Amnesty International considered him to be a prisoner of conscience, held solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression. <\/p>\n
“The main reason for my arrest, from what I understood, is a conversation I had on Facebook with a friend outside Syria about my position on the revolution and my opinion about the Muslim Brotherhood and so on,” Kaileh told Amnesty International. <\/p>\n
Following his arrest, Kaileh was held at a Syrian Air Force Intelligence branch in Damascus, where he was insulted and beaten for days. Officers used the falaqa<\/em> torture method on him, whipping the soles of his feet with a thin bamboo stick. <\/p>\n One unidentified official targeted the journalist’s background by shouting insults against Palestinians. <\/p>\n Throughout his interrogation Kaileh was repeatedly asked about his role in publishing a leftist political publication \u2013 he denies any such role, saying he collects the publication for his journalism work.\u00a0 <\/p>\n On 3 May, Kaileh was transferred to another Air Force Intelligence branch, where medical professionals referred him to a military hospital in al-Mezzeh after confirming he bore signs of having been tortured. <\/p>\n While at the military hospital, he faced even more torture than before. <\/p>\n Kaileh and the other patients were crammed in, two or three to a bed, their hands and feet bound and their faces covered with blankets. They were forced to defecate and urinate in the beds. <\/p>\n “Unfortunately, the hospital was much worse than what I was subjected to in prison. It was not a hospital, but a slaughterhouse,” Kaileh said. <\/p>\n “I stayed in this hellish condition for a week \u2026 I forced myself not to eat or drink so that I did not urinate in bed. I needed to take medication for a thyroid problem but was not given it.” <\/p>\n During his time in the hospital, Kaileh was subjected to frequent and severe beatings while blindfolded and tied to a bed. <\/p>\n The doctors joined the military officials in shouting insults at the patients, but he was unable to see if they also took part in the beatings. <\/p>\n While in detention, there were serious concerns for Kaileh’s health, as he is required to take daily medication since recovering from throat cancer in 2004. <\/p>\n On 10 May, Kaileh was taken from the hospital to a Department of Immigration branch. Officials there and at several other ministry offices interrogated him before deporting him by aeroplane to the Jordanian capital Amman on Monday.<\/p>\n Kaileh said he wants to return to Syria and plans to file a lawsuit against his deportation. <\/p>\n To Amnesty International’s knowledge, Kaileh did not take part in the ongoing popular protests in Syria and his detention and torture by the Syrian authorities were solely in relation to his political writing and journalism. <\/p>\n Kaileh was previously arrested in 1991 and sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment in Damascus for his alleged membership of the Party for Communist Action. <\/p>\n “Salameh Kaileh’s dreadful ordeal shows the extent to which the Syrian authorities will go to attempt to crush dissenting voices,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Deputy Programme Director.<\/p>\n “His horrendous account mirrors the reports we’ve received about thousands of detainees being tortured and ill-treated in detention \u2013 often in extremely poor prison conditions \u2013 amid the Syrian government’s crackdown over the past 15 months. <\/p>\n “This is not the first time that we have documented the involvement of doctors in human rights violations. They should be doing their best to restore people to health rather than allowing patients to be held in appalling conditions and subjected to torture in hospitals.”<\/p>\n