Air Security, Daraa

The Air Force Investigation Branch is regarded as the most notorious and brutal in Daraa in terms of torture, and because of its special significance at the Presidential Palace in Qasyun, and for the important role it played in suppressing the opposition and any movement aimed at improving living conditions under this repressive regime.

The branch was moved from an old neighbourhood and a very small building to its current location in 2005 following a special recommendation by Bashar al-Assad. The branch lies at a distance of 1 km south of the State Security Branch, near the Inter-city Bus Station. 

This branch was highly involved in spreading terror among the people of Daraa, to the extent that when a citizen is arrested and their family realise the Air Security Branch was behind the arrest, they begin to mourn their loved ones and prepare for a funeral, because they know for certain that their loved one will most likely die as a result of excessive torture.

A former detainee, who had spent some 18 months at the branch, told us that they were subjected to a systematic torture that was different from the torture they had received during interrogation. He also mentioned that at each morning or evening meal they were whipped randomly, while few individuals were selected to be whipped for the next hour or two.

However, the biggest suffering experienced by the detainees in this branch was when the officers and torturers took the female detainees out of their cells and began to beat them up and torture them, stark naked. They would then harass them and rape the most beautiful one among them several times in front of her inmates, and oftentimes kill her in order to get rid of her and her foetus that is usually borne as a result of repetitive rape.