Syria's Detainee Files (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
FRONTLINE investigates the Assad regime’s arrest, torture and execution of detainees during the Syrian war.
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Six months after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, more than 100,000 of the 1 million people detained by Assad’s regime during the Syrian war are still unaccounted for. What is known about the brutal system of detention, torture and killing under which they disappeared?
“Syria’s Detainee Files” documents the search for answers and accountability, shedding new light on atrocities under Assad through stunning testimony of former regime insiders and officers who carried them out, alongside the accounts of people who survived them.
The documentary follows Shadi and Hadi Haroun, two brothers who survived torture and almost a decade of imprisonment. Shadi says, “I lost 10 years of my life because of someone’s decision. Simply, ‘Erase ten years of his life, from the smallest moments to the most important ones.’”
The film explores how many former officials — some of whom defected, and some of whom stayed loyal to the regime until the end — rationalize their actions, saying they were following the orders of a government that would have killed them otherwise.
Now that the Assad regime has fallen and there are calls for accountability, the film raises questions about who, in a vast system of people following orders, should be held responsible for the atrocities.
“Syria’s Detainee Files” is a BBC Current Affairs production for GBH/FRONTLINE and BBC. The producers are Amel Guettatfi, Saad Al Nassife and Sara Obeidat. The directors are Sasha Joelle Achilli and Sara Obeidat. The senior producer is Dan Edge. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.
Explore additional reporting on “Syria’s Detainee Files” on our website:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/front....line/documentary/syr
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FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and airs nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen, and Laura DeBonis and Scott Nathan.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Prologue
01:13 - A Syrian Activist Recounts the Events Leading to His Detention in 2011
13:23 - How Syria’s Intelligence Officers Wielded Power Under Assad’s Regime
20:10 - Examining the Files of Missing Syrian Detainees
23:00 - Former Detainees & Former Assad Regime Officials Describe How Prisoners Were Tortured
40:33 - What Life Was Like in Syria’s Infamous Saydnaya Prison
1:02:37 - A Former Syrian Detainee Gathers Evidence of Crimes Committed by Assad’s Regime
1:14:59 - Who Should be Held Accountable for the Assad Regime’s Atrocities?
1:22:17 - Credits
