{"id":178581,"date":"2017-11-02T21:56:56","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T19:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scm.bz\/violations\/analysis-the-political-impasse-over-syrias-disappeared-2.html"},"modified":"2017-11-02T21:56:56","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T19:56:56","slug":"analysis-the-political-impasse-over-syrias-disappeared-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scm.bz\/en\/analysis-the-political-impasse-over-syrias-disappeared-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: The Political Impasse Over Syria\u2019s Disappeared"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tens of thousands of people remain in detention or have \u2018disappeared\u2019 in Syria, devastating countless families. Nevertheless, advocates say the issue has largely been avoided in peace talks and negotiations aimed at bringing an end to the Syrian conflict.<\/em><\/h2>\n

WRITTEN BY:\u00a0<\/small>Nicola Cutcher<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Dcimage<\/figure>\n

Members of the Families for Freedom and their supporters carrying photos of their missing loved ones at a demonstration in Geneva in February 2017.Dylan Collins\/Families for Freedom<\/cite><\/p>\n

AFTER BEING TORTURED<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>in a Syrian detention center, journalist and human rights activist Mazen Darwish was left for\u00a0dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I opened my eyes, I found myself lying among dead bodies. I tried to move and one of the guards saw that I was still alive and dragged me back to my cell. Another officer might have left me there until I died, so it is just chance that I am here today,\u201d<\/em> he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Darwish founded the\u00a0Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression<\/a>\u00a0in 2004 and worked openly in Damascus despite what\u00a0Human Rights Watch<\/a>\u00a0called the Syrian state\u2019s \u201crepression of human rights activism.\u201d In February 2012,\u00a0Syrian security forces arrested<\/a>\u00a0him and his colleagues at their office. He was\u00a0released<\/a>\u00a0in August 2015, but some of his closest friends and colleagues died in detention and others remain\u00a0\u201cdisappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands<\/a>\u00a0of people are currently missing in Syria,\u00a0most of them arrested by the regime\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0security and intelligence agencies and some taken by armed groups. This issue affects hundreds of thousands of people either directly or indirectly. Most households know someone who is missing, but the full scale of disappearances remains unknown. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad\u2019s government ignores requests to\u00a0provide information about detainees<\/a>\u00a0and many families don\u2019t report their loved ones missing for fear of\u00a0repercussions.<\/p>\n

Survivors<\/a>, including Darwish, speak of overcrowded cells, starvation, medical neglect, torture and death. Families and friends of the disappeared suffer from not knowing where their loved ones are being held nor whether they\u2019re dead or alive. The\u00a0U.N.<\/span>\u00a0published a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0last year accusing the Syrian government of the murder, rape, torture and extermination of\u00a0detainees.<\/p>\n

However, the issue continues to be largely ignored at Syria peace talks. Darwish\u2019s organization and other civil society groups recently wrote an open letter to the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights (UNHCR<\/span>) to protest against \u201cthe international community\u2019s negligence and disregard\u201d for those disappeared and detained in\u00a0Syria.<\/p>\n

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Marcel Gelauff (right) awards Mazen Darwish the Freedom of Speech and Expression Award on April 21, 2016, in Middelburg, Netherlands. (Michel Porro\/Getty\u00a0Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Last year,\u00a0U.N.<\/span>\u00a0Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura\u00a0appointed Eva Svoboda<\/a>\u00a0to handle the issue of detainees and abductees and introduced her to the International Syria Support Group\u2019s Humanitarian Taskforce. Svoboda was given no public profile, made no public statements on the issue and recently departed her post without announcement. Svoboda declined to\u00a0comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United Nations and member states know what\u2019s happened and they have the evidence. Yet they do nothing. So their position is that they know everything and allow it. By ignoring the issue, they permit it to continue,\u201d Darwish\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t stop thinking about those who are still alive and those who are dying every day. The minimum that we need is a guarantee that the killing of detainees will stop. This is the most important thing. This was the first point I made when I was released. If we had done something then, maybe\u00a0Bassel Khartabil<\/a>\u00a0would still be alive,\u201d said Darwish, referring to a well-known software developer and open web pioneer who was arrested and detained by government forces in 2012. In August 2017, his family said they received confirmation that he was executed in October\u00a02015.<\/p>\n

\"\"A photo of Bassel Khartabil, a software developer and open web pioneer who was arrested and detained by government forces in 2012. He is believed to have been executed in October 2015. (Families for\u00a0Freedom)<\/em><\/div>\n

Amnesty International this year published a report claiming that Syrian authorities had executed between 5,000 and 13,000 detainees in Saydnaya military prison during the first five years of the conflict. \u201cWe have no reason to believe that these mass hangings have stopped,\u201d Nicolette Boehland, an Amnesty researcher,\u00a0recently told Syria Deeply<\/a>.<\/p>\n