Articles for Syria

On 1 March 2015, Moshen Al Hinnawi was running away from the fights between the Kurdish forces of the People's Protection Unit (YPG) and the Islamic State (IS) in the surroundings of his village in Al Hasakah governorate in Syria, when reached a YPG military checkpoint, where he was arrested. After this, his family lost track of him and their inquiries with the Kurdish authorities were ignored.

After almost two years of disappearance, on 6 June 2016, Raed Mahameed was able to receive a visit of his family in Al Malikiyah prison, in Syrian Kurdistan. His relatives had last visited him almost two years ago, on 4 November 2014 in the same detention centre before he had disappeared.

Among the many arrests in Syria between 2011 and 2015, three men have been arrested from their homes by members of the State Security Forces – the General Intelligence Directorate falling under the authority of the Ministry of Interior –. They remain disappeared and their families do not have any information on their fates and whereabouts.

A 39-year-old shop owner, Hussein Jabara, was abducted on 11 March 2014 in Qamshili by the State Security forces. He has not been seen since July 2015 and his family remains without confirmation of his fate and whereabouts, despite several inquiries.

On 12 August 2016, Alkarama informed the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID) of the abduction of Riad Al Othman, a 45-year-old farmer from Homs countryside, following his arrest at a checkpoint in 2012.

51-year-old Zakaria Jabara was abducted in Qamishli on 2 February 2013 by the Military Security. Jabara was then taken to an unknown location and has not been seen since his arrest.

On 10 June 2012, Ayed Al Ghashim, a peaceful activist during the Syrian uprisings, was arrested while crossing a checkpoint near Qamishli. He was only released a year later after being severely tortured while secretly detained.

On 5 July 2016, Ammar Al Hasan was released from Al Malikiyah detention centre – one of the central Kurdish prisons in north-eastern Syria – from where he disappeared in March 2015. During his secret detention, he was tortured in order to force him to confess to being a member of a terrorist group.

 On 11 May 2011, Ahmad Hassoun, a 19-year-old Syrian activist, was arrested by military officers at a checkpoint situated near the police station in his hometown of Bidama, northern Syria. One year after his arrest, his father collected his corpse bearing severe marks of torture at the Tishreen military hospital in Damascus.

On 26 July 2016, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID) regarding the case of a Syrian citizen from the village of Al-Hashimiyah in the Hama Governorate who disappeared in Homs on 20 June 2015, after an arrest conducted by the Air Force Intelligence at a checkpoint.