“Prison Without Bars”, which is the fruit of cooperation between Caesar Families Association (CFA) and the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), with the support of Watch Impunity (IW), displays violations of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance related to torture that leads to death, or ends with execution either outside the law or through summary procedures, or keeps the victims missing. It also examines those violations’ impact on the families of the victims, by working with a number of families who are members of the Caesar Families Association, whose loved ones’ identities were documented by the Association in the photos smuggled by Caesar in 2014. This report provides a picture of the complex, continuous and extended violation that affects the majority of Syrian society.

According to the lowest estimated numbers of missing persons in Syria, 100,000 persons have gone missing during the past ten years, i.e. within 3650 days. Approximately 30 victims have been documented as missing persons daily. Those are not the final numbers of the victims of the complex violations, excess of violence and denial of basic rights, the right to life, physical safety and knowledge of the truth, and others, that are primarily practiced by the government.

The report concluded with a set of recommendations by the “Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression”, and the “Caesar Families Association” to the Syrian government and its institutions, which in its general form are directed to any government in Syria now or in the future and to government agencies to deal with the file of missing persons. As well as to the United Nations and its various agencies, the international community and relevant international organisations, and finally to the Syrian civil society within the framework of the efforts in the file of the missing and their families.

You can read the full report below: