Adra Prison is a prison in Syria, on the north-east outskirts of Damascus

Damascus

Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

.

Civil prisoners and leading political prisoner

Political prisoner

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....

s are held in the prison. In 2010, the prison held 7,000 prisoners, a dozen of them women. The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

referred to the prison as "infamous".

History

Ghassan Najjar, an engineer who was imprisoned in 1980, reportedly went on two hunger strike

Hunger strike

A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...

s, one to protest conditions in the prison, and his fellow inmates said he was beaten so badly by prison guards trying to force him to eat that he suffered spinal injuries.

Mas'ud Hamid, a Kurd

Kürd

Kürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...

ish journalism student, was held in solitary confinement

Solitary confinement

Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...

 in the prison for one year from 2003–04 before he was allowed monthly visits, and Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...

 said that interrogators reportedly tortured him and beat him with a studded whip on the bottom of his feet. His room was 2 metre, largely filled by a toilet in it.

In December 2004 Kurds in the prison conducted a hunger strike, which was allegedly halted by torture.

In March 2011, 13 prisoners at the prison including 80-year-old former judge Haitham al-Maleh

Haitham al-Maleh

Haitham al-Maleh is a leading Syrian human rights activist and former judge. He is an outspoken critic of the current Syrian regime under Bashar al-Assad and has been imprisoned by the Syrian government as a political prisoner on several occasions since the 1960s...

, serving a three-year jail term for criticizing corruption in Syria, and lawyer Anwar al-Bunni

Anwar al-Bunni

Anwar al-Bunni is a Syrian human rights lawyer who has defended clients such as Riad al-Turk, Riad Seif, the owner of The Lamplighter, , Kurdish protesters, and "dozens of others."...

, jailed for five years for "weakening public morale", began a hunger strike to protest political detentions and oppression.