RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – Despite the passage of seven years of his arrest by ISIS, Ahmad al-Nayef, 34, a resident of Raqqa in northern Syria, is still unable to forget his suffering inside Raqqa Municipal Stadium.
After acquiring his Law degree from Aleppo University in 2011, the man worked as a lawyer and civil activist, criticizing the social reality of his city with the aim of making it better.
Unfortunately, his work carried many risks, causing him to spend months in the worst and most frightening prison of the Islamic State organization (ISIS) in Raqqa.
After ISIS gained full control of the city in 2014, the city’s human rights activists and journalists were subjected to enforced disappearance and arrests, according to the testimonies of many of them. As a result, most of them left Raqqa and headed to other parts of Syria or outside the country.
Despite the warnings and repeated insistence of his colleagues that he should leave before getting arrested, the lawyer’s circumstances did not allow him, as his father was very old and there was no other breadwinner for his family.
Al-Nayef was arrested by ISIS in 2014. He was accused of making direct contact with members of the Syrian armed opposition factions, according to what he told North Press.
In 2014, ISIS captured the Syrian cities of Raqqa, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor and their countryside declaring an “Islamic Caliphate” in large swaths in several Syrian and Iraqi areas, and it announced Syria’s Raqqa as the capital of its “Caliphate”.
In 2016, with the participation of the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, the SDF announced a military campaign to drive ISIS out from Raqqa and its other strongholds.
In 2017, after intense battles between ISIS and SDF, the latter finally announced the complete liberation of Raqqa and its countryside.
Point 11
Along hundreds of detainees, the lawyer spent his detention period in the Raqqa Municipal Stadium, which had been turned into a prison by ISIS. It was called the Black Stadium and was described as the most terrifying ISIS prison.
After ISIS took control of Raqqa, it turned the stadium into a prison and called it “Point 11”.
Beheading, shooting and brutal torture were a common scene in Point 11.
ISIS was promoting its prison to intimidate everyone who lived in the areas under its control and make sure that no one would dare to commit a mistake, according to activists and residents in Raqqa.
According to testimonies by former detainees, executions in Point 11 were committed on a daily basis. Most of them took place on civilians and activists on charge of treason, which the terrorist group considered as its “go to charge” whenever they wanted to arrest someone.
According to Mulhim Shaaban, a civil activist from Raqqa, during the period of ISIS control over the city, the number of detainees inside this prison exceeded two thousand. The fate of many of them is still unknown due to the enforced disappearance and executions practiced by ISIS during the period between 2015 and 2016.
Psychological and physical torture
The lawyer recounted what he experienced in Point 11 with a deep breath: “At the beginning of my arrest I was forbidden to sit, blindfolded, in a dark room. I was only allowed to move during prayer, and I was deprived of food except for one meal a day.”
He also talked about the vicious beating he underwent as a prisoner there. “I was tortured regularly and every day was worse than the one that preceded it… I was hung on the ceiling by my hands and whipped on my back, and then I received electric shocks.”
Al-Nayef was accused of collaborating with leaders of the Syrian armed opposition factions, but after confiscating his phone and searching it, ISIS could not prove the charges. He was then released on the condition that he would undergo an extensive two-month Sharia course, according to him.
Dark days
In June 2017, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced taking full control of Raqqa after fierce battles against ISIS that lasted 166 days.
The case of Wissam al-Abed, 31, a journalist from Raqqa, was not much different from al-Nayef. He was arrested in 2015 on charges of working with media outlets and sending them video reports.
Al-Abed said that the radical group had tortured him both psychologically and physically. “They started beating me at first but got no confession from me,” he said.
“Then, they started torturing me psychologically by putting me in a dark room and doing intermittent visits during the day to tell me that the death sentence would be issued if I did not confess,” he added.
According to his words, he was standing blindfolded and tied for days without food or water, except in prayer times.
Al-Abed spent weeks in Point 11 which he described as “pitch dark.”
The journalist was released, but “the nightmares of arrest and torture kept hunting me whenever I remembered the stadium or walked by it.”
Following his release, al-Abed traveled to Turkey and worked in a carpet factory in an attempt to flee the awful nightmares. Nevertheless, he returned to Raqqa following its liberation from ISIS.