Issam Ghamira wants only one thing: for those responsible for the death of his nephew, Mohammad, to be identified and held accountable. Mohammad’s death sparked outrage in Syria and revived memories of torture in prisons and other forms of abuse committed during the Assad family’s rule.
It also spotlighted allegations that such abuses have continued under the government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Mohammad Ghamira, 29, a father of two and a former volunteer with the White Helmets civil defense group, reported to a police station in Al-Haffah, in the countryside of the coastal province of Latakia, earlier this month after being accused of theft.
Days later, Mohammad left the station in critical condition. He died in the hospital Aug. 16 from “complications of cerebral and intestinal bleeding” caused by “the beating he endured while in detention,” according to his uncle Issam, who serves as director of the General Authority of Al-Haffah Hospital.
“Before Mohammad was detained, the family informed the police-station chief that he had hemophilia and warned that any physical assault could have catastrophic consequences. Nevertheless, he was beaten,” Ghamira told MBN.
Hemophilia is a rare genetic disorder that prevents blood from clotting normally, meaning that any injury, no matter how minor it may appear, can cause dangerous internal bleeding.
According to Issam, the bleeding in Mohammad’s brain began gradually. He then developed neurological symptoms before losing consciousness and entering critical condition. Despite receiving medication for hemophilia and doctors’ efforts to save him, his condition progressed to brain damage, kidney failure, a drop in blood pressure and insufficient oxygen levels.
The Syrian authorities said they had opened an investigation into Ghamira’s death, which the interior minister called “categorically unacceptable,” and officials in Sharaa’s government pledged to hold those responsible accountable. Human rights organizations maintain that the incident is not an isolated one. They say abuses in detention centers are continuing, almost two years after Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell in December 2024.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 76 detainees have died under torture in prisons and detention centers operated by the transitional government since the former regime’s fall. Of those, 61 died in 2025 and 15 in 2026 to date.
The Observatory’s director, Rami Abdulrahman, told MBN that testimony from former detainees and victims’ families shows that beyond the deaths, the detention centers are also fostering torture and financial extortion, given the absence of independent oversight and effective accountability mechanisms.
This month, Syrians for Truth and Justice published an investigation based on the testimony of 19 survivors, relatives of people who died or disappeared in detention, and eyewitnesses. The investigation examined 14 cases of torture or deaths in custody between June 2025 and June 2026.
Survivors described beatings with cables, sticks, plastic pipes and rifle butts; electric shocks until they lost consciousness; mock executions; threats; humiliation; and deprivation of food and medical treatment.
The organization concluded that the repeated nature of these abuses precludes them from being seen merely as isolated individual incidents.
At the same time, however, it said it had found no evidence of a single centralized apparatus or orders from senior officials making torture a systematic state policy comparable to that which existed under Assad.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria also documented torture, ill-treatment and deaths in custody at official facilities and temporary detention centers across various parts of Syria during 2025. It called on the authorities to reform the security institutions and ensure independent investigations into abuses.
Human Rights Watch likewise confirmed that it has received reports and testimony concerning detention-related abuses under Syria’s transitional government.
Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, told MBN that the organization “is increasingly concerned by media reports of mistreatment and abuses in detention facilities.” He called on the Syrian authorities to credibly investigate all such incidents and hold the perpetrators accountable.
Asked for comment on the allegations of broader abuse, the government referred to its statement on the Ghamira case, in which Interior Minister Anas Khattab said: “Building a state governed by the rule of law begins with our ability to hold those at fault accountable.”
In an exclusive account given to MBN, a young man from Latakia province—who asked that his identity be withheld for fear of persecution—described the four months he spent being transferred between detention centers.
The young man said security personnel arrested him on security-related suspicions in March 2025. From the first moments, he said, he was subjected to beatings and humiliation. They struck him with rifle butts and kicked him before hanging him by his feet, he said, while one of them placed a gun in his mouth.
He added that he was subsequently transferred among four detention centers, where the abuses continued, until he was released after four months.
While that testimony doesn’t of itself speak to the existence of a centralized policy ordering torture, it overlaps with accounts collected by journalists and human rights organizations describing similar methods at several detention centers following the former regime’s fall.
In September 2025, Atallah Saleh al-Fayyad died after being arrested in the Masaken Barzeh area of Damascus.
In that case, the Syrian Interior Ministry announced that its investigation had established that two members of the patrol were involved in beating him. They were detained and referred to the judiciary after a forensic report confirmed that he had been physically assaulted.
The family had initially been told that he died from a sudden heart attack.
That incident was preceded in August of the same year by the death of Abdulrahman Jaajoul inside the Al-Kallaseh police station in Aleppo, where he had been detained after being accused of stealing a motorcycle.
His family said doctors told them he had injuries to the head and a sensitive area of his body, while other accounts attributed his death to his health condition.
The Internal Security Command subsequently announced the detention of the officer on duty, as well as the officials responsible for the holding cells and the investigation, and the formation of a central committee. The family continued to demand the full disclosure of the medical report and the circumstances surrounding his death.
In an extensive investigation published in December 2025, the Reuters news agency said it had compiled the names of at least 829 people detained on security-related grounds since Assad’s fall, and that the actual number was likely higher.
Reuters spoke with more than 140 Syrians, including former detainees, relatives of detainees, lawyers and human rights advocates. Forty former detainees or relatives of detainees described how they or their relatives had been subjected to mistreatment and, in some cases, torture—particularly inside detention centers. Reuters also documented the deaths of at least 11 people in custody.
At the time, Reuters quoted Syrian officials as saying that the authorities had disciplined 75 personnel for using violence and another 84 in extortion cases involving detainees.
Diana Semaan, a Syria researcher at Amnesty International, questions the Syrian authorities’ seriousness about moving forward with investigations into abuses in prisons, citing previous incidents in which no conclusions were reached.
“In the past, the authorities have said that investigations were opened into some reported cases of torture. However, the results of those investigations were not made public, and it was unclear whether suspects had been identified or prosecuted,” Semaan told MBN.
Nevertheless, Semaan welcomed the launch of an investigation into the Ghamira case, describing it as a positive step. She said, however, that it must be “independent and impartial” and lead to “all those suspected of bearing criminal responsibility being prosecuted in fair trials.”
On Aug. 20, the Syrian Interior Ministry said it had detained the investigator who oversaw Ghamira’s case and referred him to the competent judicial authorities. The ministry added that the committee investigating the case had concluded that Ghamira’s death resulted from a slap delivered by the investigator.
The authorities had previously announced the formation of a committee to investigate Ghamira’s death and detained seven people in connection with the case.
Syrian lawyer and human rights advocate Anwar al-Bunni said that “the fact that the police-station chief and personnel knew beforehand that Ghamira had hemophilia could constitute an aggravating circumstance with respect to their liability if the investigation proves that they assaulted him despite the family’s warning about the health risks.”
“The detention of the personnel and the formation of a committee within the Interior Ministry are necessary administrative measures,” al-Bunni added in remarks to MBN. “But they are no substitute for referring the case to an independent judiciary and investigating it as a criminal case, rather than merely as employee misconduct.”
In Ghamira’s case, his family is not demanding revenge, nor does it seek to hold an entire institution responsible for the actions of individuals. It simply wants an answer to one question: How did Mohammad walk into the police station on his own two feet, only to leave it hovering between life and death?
“We have received promises from the interior minister, the police leadership and the governor of Latakia that everyone proven responsible will be held accountable,” his uncle said. “This is our state, and we care about it—but we do not want our son’s rights to be lost.”
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
