This publication was funded by the European Union, and in partnership with the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Syrians for Truth and Justice – STJ/ the publisher and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights.
1. Executive Summary
More than a year and a half after the fall of the Assad regime and the opening of prisons and detention facilities long associated with torture and enforced disappearance, ill-treatment in Syria has not ceased.
Exclusive testimonies collected by Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ) reveal that severe beatings, electric shocks, humiliation, threats, deprivation of basic necessities, and deaths in custody continue to be common practices at the hands of multiple security and military actors. These abuses have occurred in official and undisclosed detention facilities, at checkpoints, and during transfers and interrogations.
This expanded investigative report draws on 19 testimonies from survivors of detention and torture, relatives of people who died or went missing in custody, and eyewitnesses. It also reviews official statements, human rights and media reports, and open-source material concerning 14 cases in which individuals were subjected to torture or died in custody between June 2025 and June 2026. The report does not seek to provide an exhaustive account of all cases during this period. Rather, it analyses recurring practices and the institutional and security environments that allowed them to persist.
The testimonies obtained by STJ show that torture was not confined to interrogation rooms; in several cases, it began at the moment of arrest. Individuals were beaten at checkpoints and in the streets before being informed of the reasons for their detention or charged with any specific offence. Some were transferred, blindfolded and handcuffed, among several facilities without their arrest being clearly recorded or their families being told where they were held.
Several incidents bore strong indicia of torture, given the severity of the pain and suffering inflicted, the deliberate humiliation involved, and the use of such treatment to extract information or confessions, or for purposes of punishment, intimidation, coercion, or discrimination. Survivors described being punched and kicked and beaten with cables, sticks, plastic pipes, and rifle butts; subjected to electric shocks until they lost consciousness; threatened with death or execution; subjected to mock executions; partially stripped; and forced into degrading positions.
The report also documents forms of sexual violence and sexual torture, including threats to rape family members, sexual touching and sexual assault, and insults of a sexual nature.
In some incidents, wives and children were used to pressure and subdue detainees, while family members were themselves deprived of their liberty, held in inappropriate conditions, and denied food and healthcare.
The testimonies further show that sectarian, ethnic, or political identity; previous employment or military service; a person’s area of origin; and the contents of mobile phones were used as grounds for suspicion and punishment without an adequate nexus to any individual criminal conduct. Beatings and interrogations were accompanied by sectarian, ethnic, and political insults, indicating that discrimination was not merely incidental but, in several cases, formed part of the purpose for which the torture was inflicted.
The harm was not limited to direct violence. Witnesses described being held in severely overcrowded cells lacking ventilation and hygiene and being denied adequate food, water, bathing facilities, and medical care. In some cases, these conditions caused or contributed to serious illnesses whose effects persisted after release. Some survivors were released with injuries and psychological trauma; others lost money, phones, and other property, while their families bore the costs of searching for them and securing treatment, as well as the toll of uncertainty over their fate.
The material reviewed by STJ includes deaths in detention facilities operated by different actors. In some cases, families were told that the death resulted from a medical condition; in others, families reported seeing injuries or marks on the bodies that they believed indicated violence. In the absence of independent medical reports or published investigative findings, it is not possible to determine conclusively the medical cause of death in each case. Nevertheless, a death occurring in the custody of a detaining authority, coupled with credible allegations of torture, triggers an obligation to conduct a prompt, independent, and transparent investigation.
The incidents documented in this report do not point to a single detention apparatus or one centralized chain of command directing all violations. Rather, they reveal multiple, overlapping detention structures comprising security and police services, military formations, armed factions, and local forces, as well as temporary or undisclosed facilities. Yet similar methods recurred across these actors: beatings upon arrest, torture during interrogation, discriminatory insults, incommunicado detention, denial of access to a lawyer and judicial oversight, and denial that certain individuals were in custody or withholding information from their families.
The multiplicity of actors and facilities, together with unannounced transfers, created accountability gaps and made it more difficult for families and lawyers to trace detainees and identify where abuses occurred. It also allowed each actor to disclaim responsibility for injuries or acts occurring before it received a detainee or after the detainee’s transfer, in the absence of unified records, formal handover documentation, and independent medical examinations documenting the person’s condition at every stage.
STJ concludes that the persistence of torture was linked to the absence or weakness of fundamental safeguards governing detention, foremost among them immediate registration, family notification, access to a lawyer, prompt appearance before a judicial authority, independent medical examination, and confinement only in officially recognized and monitored facilities. Torture often occurred while the detaining authority exercised exclusive control over the individual and all information concerning them, without effective judicial or external oversight.
In some cases, the relevant authorities announced investigations or formed committees to examine the circumstances of deaths or ill-treatment. Announcing an investigation, however, is not in itself evidence that accountability has been achieved. There is no public system for tracking the number of complaints, investigations, judicial referrals, judgments, or measures adopted to prevent recurrence. Nor is sufficient information available about the independence of investigations, the participation of families, or whether inquiries extend to persons in positions of command.
Given the recurrence of these practices, the involvement of multiple personnel, and their commission in several facilities, the problem cannot properly be reduced to isolated individual misconduct. Effective accountability must extend beyond the direct perpetrators of torture to those who ordered arrests, supervised detention facilities, knew or should have known of the abuses, and failed to prevent or investigate them or to ensure that victims received treatment.
The report concludes that the change in political authority has not yet been accompanied by the effective dismantling of the structures and practices that enable torture. A transition based on the rule of law cannot be built while undisclosed detention continues, mediation, exchanges, and security assurances substitute for judicial process, or accountability is applied selectively to the crimes of the former regime without ensuring that violations committed by present-day actors are also investigated.
STJ maintains that torture will not end through its condemnation in law or the announcement of investigations only after incidents become public. Ending torture requires subjecting all detaining authorities to uniform rules and rigorous independent oversight; ensuring detainees’ access to their families, lawyers, courts, and doctors from the outset; holding both direct perpetrators and persons in positions of command accountable; and securing truth, justice, and reparation for survivors and for the families of those who died in prison or disappeared after arrest.