Venezuelans deported by Trump to El Salvador describe ‘horror movie’ mega-prison; The Guardian, July 24, 2025

Marina Dunbar and agency , The Guardian; Venezuelans deported by Trump to El Salvador describe ‘horror movie’ mega-prison

"Arturo Suárez, whose reggaeton songs surfaced on social media after he was sent to El Salvador, arrived at his family’s home in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on Tuesday. His sister hugged him after he emerged from a vehicle belonging to the country’s intelligence service.

“It is hell. We met a lot of innocent people,” Suárez told reporters, referring to the prison he was held in. “To all those who mistreated us, to all those who negotiated with our lives and our freedom, I have one thing to say, and scripture says it well: vengeance and justice is mine, and you are going to give an account to God [the] Father.”...

Meanwhile, Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist who had been deported to Cecot under an obscure wartime law invoked by the Trump administration, was among those released.

Romero had entered the US legally through the CBP One app last summer, seeking asylum, but eventually was detained and removed to El Salvador with the others.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center, based in Los Angeles, is now appealing Romero’s case, according to ABC, asserting that he was denied his legal right to seek asylum.

Romero broke down in tears when he was finally reunited with his parents in Venezuela on Wednesday, reported ABC News 10.

“His entire town was waiting for him, preparing a meal,” said Melissa Shepard, legal services director at the California non-profit."

Tears of joy and sadness as ‘disappeared’ Syrians emerge from Assad’s prisons; The Guardian, December 8, 2024

 Bethan McKernan, The Guardian; Tears of joy and sadness as ‘disappeared’ Syrians emerge from Assad’s prisons

"s Syrian rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured city after city on the road to Damascus, forcing Bashar al-Assad to flee the country, they also opened the doors of the regime’s notorious prisons, into which upwards of 100,000 people disappeared during nearly 14 years of civil war...

Verified videos from Damascus showed dozens of women and small children being held in cells, the rebels opening the doors telling them not to be afraid...

The photos and videos of reunited families are bittersweet. The stories of the prisoners are astonishing; they will take years to be told in full, further grim evidence of the crimes the Assad family committed against so many of their own people...

Raghad al-Tatary, a pilot who refused to bomb the city of Hama during the uprising against Hafez al-Assad in the 1980s, was freed after 43 years; Tal al-Mallouhi, 19 when she was arrested in 2009 for a blogpost criticising state corruption, was found alive."

We can’t ignore this brutal cleansing in China; The Washington Post, August 14, 2018

Editorial Board, The Washington Post;

We can’t ignore this brutal cleansing in China

 

"Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Uighurs, along with Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities, have been sequestered in the camps, which now number more than 1,000, according to outside experts. An estimated 2 million other people have been forced to undergo indoctrination sessions without formal detention. Those detained include Uighur intellectuals and relatives of journalists who have reported on the campaign, including those of U.S.-sponsored Radio Free Asia. Ms. McDougall said more than 100 Uighur students returning from abroad had disappeared and some had died.

Inside the camps, detainees are bombarded with propaganda, forced to recite slogans and sing songs in exchange for food, and pressured to renounce Muslim practices. A statement released by Chinese dissidents last week said torture in the centers is common, as are deaths. In all, the campaign is the largest and most brutal repression the regime has undertaken since the Cultural Revolution."