World Prisons
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Syrian Arab Republic

Al-Khatib prison

Low
Verified 22 May 2026
Fresh · 7d ago

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How to send mail, money, and visit Al-Khatib prison

Step-by-step guidance using the Syrian Arab Republic system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

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Background

Al-Khatib prison is a detention and torture center in the Muhajreen neighborhood of central Damascus, Syria. It was operated by Branch 251 of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate during the era of Ba'athist Syria. Al-Khatib, like many prisons under the regime of Bashar al-Assad, is known from testimonies given by former detainees and survivors who recount the poor conditions and use of systematic and generalized torture that included rape and sexual violence. The conditions caused a significant number of deaths at Al-Khatib, some of which have been identified in the pictures taken by photographer César. During the Syrian civil war the prison held demonstrators, political prisoners, and human rights activists.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

Current population

Occupancy

Year opened

Operational

Facility profile

Operator

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

Region

Security level

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

Insufficient data
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Data completeness

10%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources