Sources at the Ayn Zara prison clinic, which treated inmates injured in the al-Roueimy prison violence, confirmed to Human Rights Watch that some of those admitted had sustained direct gunshot wounds and others had injuries apparently caused by fragments from ricocheting bullets.
“The government should also address inmates’ underlying grievances about their prolonged detention without charge and lack of access to lawyers,” Stork said.
Accounts from Witnesses
Human Rights Watch is withholding the identity of the inmates whose interviews are cited below to safeguard them against possible reprisals.
One inmate told Human Rights Watch that detainees began a peaceful hunger strike on August 24 to protest their prolonged incarceration in breach of judicial procedures. Prison authorities, he said, had repeatedly told detainees that they would be taken before a prosecutor to commence legal procedures, yet: “Some of us have been detained for two years without any formal charge or seeing a judge even once, so, we decided to go on strike.”
Inmates said that the authorities had tried to convince them to end the hunger strike before resorting quickly to lethal force, including shooting with firearms, at about 4 p.m. on August 26. They said the shooting continued for four hours.
One inmate who said he was in a hallway together with other detainees when the violence began told Human Rights Watch:
The situation inside the prison escalated when prison authorities started to insult detainees. This led to heated shouting matches and ultimately one guard opened fire on us with a Kalashnikov. I saw one inmate hit the ground after being shot in the thigh. He was bleeding profusely. Another detainee rushed to carry him out of harm’s way and this is when tension reached a boiling point.
News spread fast that this inmate was fatally injured [which was untrue] so detainees started to break doors of cells and burn personal belongings and mattresses to try and create a thick smoke that would shield us from the ever intensifying onslaught of security forces. They were shooting directly at us through the metal bars and through the barred ceiling of the corridors and courts. I saw guards of the prison, but they were joined with some men wearing masks.
Only after shooting was “well underway,” the inmate said, guards began to throw tear gas into the cells and courtyards. Inmates allowed a prison official and some guards who had become trapped to escape safely, but firing by guards continued: “until the prison director and some other men from Ayn Zara prison arrived and intervened.”