I was with my wife heading to hospital in Damascus. We had to stop by a military checkpoint before we got to our destination. The checkpoint guard pointed at my student ID, which reads College of Sciences, physics department. He took a list of names out of his pocket. I did not know that my name was in the list.

Immediately after, our mobiles were taken and my wife sent home. The guard blindfolded my eyes and handcuffed my hands to throw me in a car. I was taken to a building that used to be a cultural centre but now is a detention depot, in Jassim city, in the capital. I was held in the centre for one night and shifted to the military security branch in Daraa city.

The cell was 5 metres by 5 metres, full of more than 100 detainees. For food, we got a piece of bread twice a day.

After 10 days, I was interrogated. The guard blindfolded me and handcuffed me. The instructor told me to kneel. He asked me about an activist I had once contacted by phone. I denied any link with him. The interrogator began shouting and beating me with a thick green pipe on my back.

The interrogator told me he would himself confess on my behalf and write down what he wanted. Then I was taken to the air intelligence branch. The moment I stepped into the branch, along with another nine detainees, handcuffed and blindfolded, we were greeted with a wave of kicks, slaps and blows coming from all directions. Some of the blows were from fists, others from pipes.

I was permitted to visit the loo twice a day. The moment you were allowed to go to the lavatory, there were 10 guards standing opposite each other, who would aim all sort of blows at the detainee, with whips and truncheons.

During a second interrogation, I was stripped to my underwear. The interrogator tied my arms to a pipe hung from a hook in the roof. Any officer or guard passing by would hit me with different things. Interrogators stubbed out cigarettes on my chest while I hung there.

I was interrogated four times in that branch. Questions were: who are the rebels that you know? What sort of weapon did you use? What is your association with that mobile number?

The interrogator was asking me questions I had no answers to. When I said, 'I do not know,' I would be hit. The scars are still carved on my body. I thought: it is better to sign whatever he says, just to put an end to the beating.

After a few days, I was called for interrogation again. Same questions, same denials. This time, however, they poured acid on my feet while I was hanging from the wall. The pain was beyond all description. I felt my heart would blow up at that moment.

The third round of interrogation had a new method of torture, which was chaining my arms back to be lifted up. My arms were crushed together for 15 minutes. Breathing was almost impossible. My shoulders were dislocated.

After 23 days, I was moved to a solitary cell. It was 180cm by 130cm but there were 14 detainees with me. A detainee would stand up to allow another to sit. I was sealed up in that cell for 43 days.

Every 48 hours, we would have a piece of bread we couldn't even see. We were shut in, naked except for our underwear. It was January, freezing cold. We were sitting on a floor thickly covered with piss and dirt. I was interrogated only once within these 43 days but I would be beaten twice when I went to the loo.

We were allowed less than 20 seconds: if you took longer, your torture would be atrocious. We would rush back and forth to the loo. I was 95kg (15 stone) before detention, and 60kg when I was released.

Some detainees died in our cell, and others died during interrogation. There was a day I moved four bodies. Some of them died because of starvation, others because of illness or injury from torture.

I was moved two more times before my family bribed an officer with 400,000 Syrian lire to put my name on top of a list of detainees who would be heard by a judge. My health was waning and my family wanted to move me to hospital. The judge decided to release me. I was detained for seven months in all.

I fled to Jordan with my wife and two little girls. One of my daughters was born while I was in prison. I'm still in pain, and am running back and forth to the doctor.