Addressing an event on human rights on Wednesday organized by his Justice and Development Party (AK Party), President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hailed victory by the people of Syria against the Baathist regime of Bashar Assad. He said the door to peace opened with the end of the “bloody regime.” He noted that Türkiye always adhered to its conscience while shaping policies to address the crisis in Syria. He added that voluntary returns of refugees from Türkiye to Syria would increase if peace prevails in the neighboring country.
Erdoğan began his speech with "greetings" to the oppressed Palestinians of Gaza and the people of Syria liberated from the Assad regime.
"Yesterday was the 76th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the most referenced declaration but its content is barely implemented. It was a promising declaration when it was proclaimed but it was damaged over time and left non-functioning by states wielding power," he said. Erdoğan lamented the fact that so-called defenders of human rights and democracy never raised their voice "while Israel was stealing lands of Palestinians, our brothers and sisters were being killed in Khojaly (of Azerbaijan) while Iraq and Afghanistan were being invaded and our neighbor Syria witnessed the most brutal oppression in its history, while the declaration was trampled upon."
On Syria, Erdoğan reiterated Türkiye's open-door policy for those fleeing conflicts.
"Türkiye has long been a compassionate and merciful refuge for the oppressed. We have never asked those who came to our doors whether they were Turkish, Arab or Kurdish. We did not inquire whether those seeking help were Muslim, Jewish or Christian. We never questioned the skin color of those seeking shelter, whether white or Black. Without regard for identity or faith, we opened not only the doors of our country but also the gates of our hearts to those in need. From the suffering in Gaza to the crisis in Syria, we have never abandoned our brothers and sisters," he said.
"As a nation, we have excelled in the test of humanity, especially in dealing with the crisis in our neighboring Syria. From the very beginning, our stance has been clear. Our words and actions have always been transparent. Türkiye has approached the Syrian crisis with a focus on conscience and humanity. As neighbors, we have strived to fulfill our obligations during difficult times. We welcomed Syrian refugees with the spirit of ansar, embracing them in the best possible way. We said, 'We are ansar,' and with that, we felt a responsibility to do whatever was necessary for those seeking refuge," he said. He was using an Arabic term for the people of Medina who hosted Prophet Muhammad and his followers when he was forced to leave Mecca to escape persecution for his faith.
In one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations, anti-regime forces seized the Syrian capital, Damascus, and Assad fled to Russia following 13 years of civil war and more than 50 years of his family’s brutal rule. Türkiye, which said it gave no support and had no involvement in the offensive led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), said it wanted the new Syrian administration to be inclusive and for Syrians to determine their own future.
The conflict in its southern neighbor directly affected Türkiye which at one point hosted the largest Syrian refugee community in the world and found itself facing the threat of a new terrorist group in the form of the PKK/YPG. In his latter days as head of the regime, Türkiye also reached out to Bashar Assad, seeking to normalize relations it severed when the conflict erupted more than a decade ago. Türkiye sought a political settlement to the conflict, to no avail.
President Erdoğan highlighted the drama that unfolded at Sednaya Prison of Syria where people imprisoned and tortured by the Assad regime were rescued by anti-regime forces after the fall of the regime. "Looking at centers of torture and death like Sednaya Prison, it is now clearer than ever what a disaster was narrowly avoided. The fall of the bloody Baathist regime has opened pathways to peace and security in Syria. As stability grows, the number of voluntary returns will also increase," he said.
Sednaya became a symbol of the Assad regime's oppressive regime as former inmates' accounts expose. It is nicknamed the "slaughterhouse" for the mass torture and killing of dissidents of Assad while others were forced to live in extremely harsh conditions.
Civil defense workers from the White Helmets estimate that 20,000 to 50,000 prisoners were rescued from the building complex north of the capital Damascus in just one day. Up to 150,000 could have been imprisoned there – many are still missing. With the liberation, new details have come to light about the conditions in Sednaya, where, according to estimates by the White Helmets, 50 to 100 people were probably executed every day and then burned in ovens. The news channel Al Jazeera aired footage of a man who cannot remember his own name after allegedly being tortured to the extreme. Others who were imprisoned during the reign of Assad's father Hafez are now learning that he died in 2000 and that his son Bashar, who has now been deposed, took power.
The methods used by army and security officers must have been so brutal that the lawyer and former U.N. chief prosecutor David Crane, who viewed torture images of the Syrian defector "Caesar," compared them to Nazi rule. In 2014 he spoke of "industrial-scale killings." According to Amnesty International, Sednaya had a room with 30 nooses for hanging prisoners, and according to the U.S. government, a crematorium next to the main building for burning bodies. White Helmets leader Raid al-Saleh also says he and his team discovered bodies in ovens. Prisoners must have died countless more deaths before they eventually died in the complex. Survivors and former guards told Amnesty International about a human press known as the "flying carpet" and the "tire" method, in which victims were forced into a car tire with their heads between their knees and then beaten.
