By Lubana Hassamy | Published 8th December 2025

Trigger warning: this article contains graphic descriptions of torture and violence.

December 8, 2025 marks the first anniversary since the collapse of the former dictator, Bashar Al-Assad, who ruled Syria ruthlessly with an iron fist. Assad was toppled by the Syrian opposition group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, led by the current president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, marking the end of years of tyranny and the nightmare endured by the Syrian population. 

However, for Syrians both at home and abroad, the echoes of conflict and oppression still linger. Due to the turmoil of conflict, it is difficult to obtain a precise death toll under Assad’s reign. Some sources state that up to 600,000 individuals have been murdered, but it is widely believed in Syria that the real figure greatly exceeds this. 

Over the years, Amnesty International and other human rights organisations have investigated and covered stories coming out of Syria regarding the darkness which manifested in civilians’ lives in numerous forms. On the material level, the absence of electricity, used by the former regime as a weapon of war, meant that you could not walk the streets at night, and many who attempted to leave their homes never returned. However, darkness and despair also sank deeply into people’s minds and permeated every corner of the country. In the city of Homs, the only standing tower, originally called ‘Burj of Gardenia’, was nicknamed locally as ‘Burj of Death’ as regime forces would take advantage of the tower’s soaring height to bomb civilians below. Backyards turned into graves as families buried their children who were targeted by Assad’s forces. In fact, following the fall of the regime, mass graves were uncovered across the country, and many more continue to be found to this day.  

For Syrian families, nothing will ever be enough to fix this injustice. However, at the very least, the international community has a responsibility to commemorate the victims who bore witness to these horrors and fought to secure a brighter Syria. Additionally, it is essential that the Assad family and all other perpetrators under his rule are held accountable for their war crimes and are prosecuted to the highest degree under international law. 

This article will share some stories of the atrocities that occurred under Assad’s rule, highlighting what life looked like for hundreds of thousands of Syrians.

Omar AlShogre

Omar AlShogre, a valiant human rights activist, was imprisoned multiple times under the Assad regime for peaceful protesting. At the age of 17, he was arrested again and sent to the most distinguished prison in the suburbs of Damascus, Sednaya prison, also nicknamed ‘Human Slaughterhouse.‘ Inside, he describes having witnessed and endured horrific torture techniques, such as guards breaking prisoners’ bones and pulling out their fingernails. Al-Shogre was forced to watch guards beat his cousins until he gave them false confessions of crimes he never committed. To add to the anguish, guards would ask cellmates to decide which one of them should be executed as a form of psychological torture. Amnesty International have previously produced a report portraying Sednaya as a place of relentless suffering where mass hangings and inhumane practices would take place daily. 

Michel Kilo

Michel Kilo, a Syrian writer imprisoned by the Assad regime due to his political views and publications, narrated a story in 2012 of his experience meeting a woman who had been raped and gave birth to a young boy inside a Syrian prison. When Kilo tried to comfort the young boy with a fictional story involving nature, the young boy looked confused, asking Kilo, “What is a bird?” and “What is a tree?” This young boy had never seen outside prison walls. 

As the opposition forces were releasing innocent detainees from prisons across Syria over a decade later, it was revealed that some individuals had spent decades in prison, and several young children were walking out of prison for the first time in their entire lives alongside their mothers, who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of implacable guards. 

Razan Zaitouneh

Razan Zaitouneh was a prominent Syrian lawyer and journalist who co-founded the Local Coordination Committees in Syria and the Violations Documentation Centre, aiming to raise awareness of human rights abuses faced by Syrians. Amnesty reported that she would participate in anti-government protests alongside her husband, who was tortured by the former regime, and she helped Syrian women in Duma support themselves financially through multiple profit-making ventures. On December 9, 2013, Zaitouneh was forcibly disappeared, and her whereabouts have not been found since. Her fate mirrors that of many other journalists who sacrificed their safety to fight for fundamental freedoms for all Syrians. Hundreds of thousands of individuals have been forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime and other armed groups in Syria. A new document was released in December 2025 which contains 70,000 images of former detainees who had been disappeared and tortured between 2015 and 2024, further intensifying the grief of the abductees’ families. 

Today, Syrians experience the euphoria and pain of liberation, which are tightly enmeshed. After decades of loss and suffering, of towns that have been entirely demolished, and of inconceivable levels of poverty, the cycles of trauma will likely live on for many years as they embark on a path of recovery and the pursuit of justice. 

Editor: Emma Burgess