2025-03-07
36 分钟This is the Guardian today inside the Islamic State prisons the west is trying to forget.
So we're walking over to the prison now and we've been told basically we'll be able to talk to the prisoners,
say whatever we want, just have conversations with them.
But they've asked us to follow one condition,
which is that these prisoners have no idea what's happening in the outside world, including that Bashar Al Assad's regime has fallen.
And they've asked us not to tell them that because they don't know how it might motivate them.
And so it's bizarre to think that something as momentous as that has happened.
They have no idea.
But those are the rules.
A few weeks ago, I was being given a rare tour around a prison in the northeast Syrian desert.
It's home to more than 4,000 men
and allegedly some boys accused of joining the militant group Islamic State about a decade ago when it ruled this area.
Just being let in now.
Guards with their faces covered by balaclavas took me through one locked door after another.
I can just hear the din behind these heavy metal doors of each cell being taken to cell number 11.
They're opening up inside.
They swung open a small grate to show me the crowded cell inside.
And I felt this surge of body heat rush through the gap.
And one of the prisoners, a thin middle aged guy, approached Keefak.
Hello.