Saydnaya: Inside a Syrian torture prison

In 2016, Earshot’s founding director, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, collaborated with Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture to create an acoustic survey of the Assad regime's Saydnaya prison. Amnesty international estimates that more than 13,000 people have been executed in this prison since protests began in in 2011. The prison is inaccessible to independent observers, and so the memories of the few former inmates who have been released are the only available source of information documenting the violations that have taken place inside. The ability to see anything in Saydnaya was severely limited. Prisoners were kept in the dark, blindfolded or had to cover their eyes when in the presence of guards. Abu Hamdan developed dedicated Earwitness interviews and digital techniques to reconstruct the acoustic architecture of the prison and gain insight into the crimes committed there.

You can see and hear more information about the Saydnaya investigation here.