لم يكن هناك مكان في سوريا أكثر رعباً من سجن صيدنايا خلال عقود الحكم الاستبدادي لعائلة الأسد. يقع سجن صيدنايا على تلة قاحلة في ضواحي دمشق العاصمة، وكان في صميم نظام آل الأسد الواسع من سجون التعذيب والاعتقالات التعسفية المستخدم لسحق كل أشكال المعارضة. بحلول نهاية الحرب الأهلية التي استمرت قرابة ١٤ عاماً وانتهت في…
No place in Syria was more feared than Sednaya prison during the Assad family’s decades-long, iron-fisted rule. Situated on a barren hilltop on the outskirts of Damascus, the capital, Sednaya was at the heart of the Assads’ extensive system of torture prisons and arbitrary arrests used to crush all dissent. By the end of the…
An Algerian French writer whose arrest in Algeria on accusations of undermining national unity and security inflamed tensions with France was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday. The writer, Boualem Sansal, who was born in Algeria and became a French citizen last year, was arrested in November because of statements he made to…
One week after the Turkish government arrested the mayor of Istanbul, who is the top rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the political opposition on Wednesday pressed new tactics to fight what it called an assault on the country’s democracy. The arrest has set off nightly demonstrations that have drawn hundreds of thousands of antigovernment…
Shortly after the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador this weekend, the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, posted a three-minute video on social media. It featured shackled men being marched off a plane over a dramatic electronic soundtrack and into prison, where they were shaved bald. Mr. Bukele also taunted the U.S. judge…
A French inmate who fled police after armed assailants attacked a prison convoy in May was apprehended in Romania, French officials said Saturday. His capture ended a monthslong hunt for the man, whose violent escape resulted in the deaths of two prison guards. French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau confirmed in a statement on X that…
A Russian imprisoned in the United States will be freed “in the coming days” in exchange for the release this week of the American schoolteacher Marc Fogel, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters that Russia would not identify the prisoner until after the release. Mr. Peskov said that…
For years, the Palestinian administration in the occupied West Bank has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in stipends to the families of Palestinians jailed or killed by Israel — including those involved in violent attacks. The United States and Israel have long condemned the payments and pressured the Palestinian Authority to end them….
Stephen James Hubbard left America behind decades ago, first for Japan, then Cyprus and finally Ukraine. He didn’t like the government — any government, really. He was a wanderer, growing up in a small town in Michigan and traveling the world before ending up alone in the eastern Ukrainian town of Izium when the Russians…
Hamas released three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for 183 Palestinians jailed by Israel, in a staged handover where rifle-toting Hamas fighters prodded their gaunt captives to give short speeches, effectively at gunpoint, thanking the militants who had held them captive for 16 months. The events made an already tenuous cease-fire more fragile, possibly…