A torture device discovered at Saydnaya prison in Damascus on Monday. Clothing strewn across the floor of a cell inside the Saydnaya prison as a Syrian man awaits news about an imprisoned relative Monday. The dynasty built and operated a network of detention centers scattered across Syria, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. The Human Rights Data Analysis Group, an independent scientific human rights organization based in San Francisco, has counted at least 17,723 people killed in Syrian custody from 2011 to 2015 — around 300 every week — almost certainly a vast undercount, it says. Syrians wait for news Monday about their relatives incarcerated at Saydnaya prison.

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Persons: Assad, nooses, Emin Sansar, Bashar al, AnadoluAnagha Subhash Nair, —, Abdulaziz Ketaz, Saydnaya, Hafez Assad, Getty Images Hafez Assad, Richard Engel, Gabe Joselow, Alexander Smith Organizations: NBC, Getty, Anadolu, NBC News, Amnesty International, Amnesty, Getty Images, United Nations Locations: DAMASCUS, Syria, Syria’s, Damascus, Anadolu, Saydnaya, AFP, San Francisco, London