September 28, 2011.

Thirty-year-old Syrian activist Amjad Baiazy wanted to help treat the pro-democracy protesters who were injured during their demonstrations by the violent responses of the Syrian police. But after the Syrian government shut down the international medical organization he worked for, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Baiazy decided to leave.

On May 12, he was waiting in line at Damascus’ International Airport to leave for London. As his passport was being checked, he was arrested by the political security branch of the secret police, which deals with enemies of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. "I was never given any reason for why I was ‘wanted,’” Baiazy told NOW Lebanon. He believes the driver who was hired by MSF was the one who reported him.

A few hours after his arrival at a secret police prison he was called to an interrogation cell, where an officer cuffed him to the chair and asked him where he got the money to come to Syria. "I did not answer but instead laughed a vicious laugh,” Baiazy said. As a result, the officer "brutally beat me on the face and then whipped me with a wooden stick.”

He was asked if he was a British citizen, since he had resided in the United Kingdom, and if he had any "serious diseases.” "When I said no, I could immediately tell how happy they sounded even though I was blindfolded,” Baiazy said. The regime could torture him "without concern” as he was not a citizen of a Western country—despite the fact that he worked for an international organization. "I kept telling them that I [was working] with MSF and was on a humanitarian mission in Damascus.”

This was the beginning of a 60-day stay in several of the notorious secret police prisons of Syria.

"I was beaten and whipped for hours every day,” Baiazy said. "I was not allowed to close my eyes for eight days. Security guards were instructed to watch me every two minutes.” His physical condition started to deteriorate, and his feet became swollen. "I was screaming from pain and asked to be hospitalized, but I was denied medical treatment.”

"On the sixth day, I started hallucinating. On the eighth day, the interrogator asked me if I had ‘anything to add’ to my statements. I told him no.” After days of sleep deprivation, beatings and sitting in the dark isolation of his cell, the guard "ordered I be taken to rest.”

Baiazy was transferred to the Central Jail of Adra, northeast of Damascus, after having spent more than a month in solitary confinement. Three weeks later, he was released on bail and escaped Syria.

Baiazy’s case is nothing new in Syria. According to Amnesty International, at least 103 people are believed to have died in Syrian prisons during six months of government crackdown on the pro-democracy protests. James Lynch, Amnesty International’s press officer for Middle East and North Africa, told NOW Lebanon that "In over half of these cases, there is evidence that torture has taken place. The bodies have borne signs of beating, shooting and stabbing.” The Assad regime’s use of torture, he said, amounted to "to crimes against humanity.”

According to Nabil Halabi, head of the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, the Syrian government is "using torture as a systematic strategy to punish and terrorize those who oppose the regime.”

Halabi explained that most of those held in detention are the relatives of activists and are being used as "leverage.” "The Syrian people are being tortured to be terrorized and not in order to be interrogated,” he said.

"There is a whole governmental system involved in the torture of detainees—not just the Air Force Intelligence or Military Security branches… Many people don’t make it; their bodies are either returned to their families or buried someplace.”

Amjad Baiazy was one of the few who made it out alive. The regime eventually charged him with "defaming the Syrian state” and "weakening the national sentiment”—crimes punishable by 15 years in prison. And while he says he feels he should be in Syria "to fight the crimes of the government,” he worries his family will be targeted.

Despite the danger to protesters still in Syria, Baiazy still has a message for those demonstrating against the regime. "Never abandon your rights. Fight for them—whatever it takes. Leaving power in the hands of an unaccountable few will make you enslaved and controlled.”