From Qamishly to Aleppo

And from Aleppo to Daraa

And by every party in the conflict  

On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance On 30 August, Human Rights guardians organization states that the Syrian government and all parties of the conflict continue to hide their critics and terrorize the targets them in order to silence their voices or eliminate their peaceful activity.

The organization also worked on starting campaigns to advocate the victims of more than 200 cases of enforced disappearance, and expresses its intention to continue to put pressure on Governments to reveal the fate and whereabouts of all missing persons.

We also documented 760 cases of Enforced Disappearance until the date of this declaration and they were from all of the parties.

On this occasion lawyer Sulaiman issa Executive manager of Human rights guardians said   that “from al Malikiyah in Hasaka to Aleppo and from Aleppo to Daraa the government and its regimes and the other armed groups are still detaining thousands of people secretly. And it also threatened everyone who tries to look for his missing relatives.

We are really worried about the hostage’s fate and the great violations to their rights.

And we demand the Syrian authorities to respect their duties according to the national law to stop this violation of the human’s rights.  

Enforced disappearances are committed by State agents or people acting on their behalf, with their insistence on refusing to admit it or intentionally hiding the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared, which deprive them the protection provided by law to them.

It is also committed by the authorities of the other parties like ISIS and PYD.

The pattern is almost the same, the story begins by avoiding the transfer of detainees to court after their arrest, and the absence of any criminal record therefore they become victims of enforced disappearance, hiding from the outside world and their families and without any guarantees of fair trial or saying anything about their fate.

The detention most likely involves another crime which is torture and bad treatment, which unfortunately ends up with death in many cases.  

According to HRG sources, about 85,000 people are victims of enforced disappearance in Syria between 2011 and 2017. Civilian disappearances continue in disturbing numbers.

Therefore enforced disappearance has a great effect on the victim by depriving him from his basic rights like the absence of guarantee of a fair trial, in addition of daily torture and the lack of medical care which directly contributed in the death of many prisoners, besides the direct psychological and financial damage caused to the family especially if the victim was the only supporter.

The relatives are subjected to threats too, many got arrested while searching for their beloved ones, and others were blackmailed by middle men and paid a lot of money just for a clue of life.

State-security, military-security and air force intelligence are responsible for most of the disappearances besides the associating forces like the national army and foreign forces, ISIS, PYD and other fighting groups had their share too.

The objective was to silence all the opposing voices and terrorize people in order to control them.

Checkpoints night raids on houses were the common ways to arrest people, they were getting arrested while they were going to their jobs or on the border ports or while going from one city to another. Informer reports, name resemblance played a good part too.

Sometimes just being born in a certain city was enough reason to get arrested, after taking back some of the cities by the government many people got arrested regardless of what they did. Like what happened in Aleppo after taking it by the Russian forces.

In the case of” Abdullah Badr” from a village called Aborbes in Aleppo, the military security arrested a high school student after a raid on their house by a patrol includes two cars one is a pickup and the other is a white sedan which belongs to head of the security office. They arrested the young man while he was preparing for the final exam, they cuffed him in front of his mother who begged them to let him go.

She looked for him in all security branches without any results, lately his family learned that he is in Sydnaya prison.

The mother says my son’s future is lost and I want nothing in life but seeing him

And we thought that he is safe because he is a student who seeks to build his life.

Considering the systematic enforced disappearance actions in Syria, HRG demands the Syrian government to respect their obligations according to the international law and put an end to it.

Start investigations about the enforced disappearance cases

Arresting the ones responsible for those crimes

Compensating the victim’s families

Allow the UN to visit prisons and conduct investigations.