Articles for Syria

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.

On 11 and 19 July 2016, Alkarama and Human Rights Guardians wrote to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID) regarding the cases of four Syrian citizens from the village of Kafr al-Tun who disappeared in the Governorate of Hama in western central Syria between 2012 and 2013, their families rem

On 11 July 2016, Alkarama and Human Rights Guardians wrote to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID) regarding the cases of five Syrian citizens from the village of Kafr al-Tun who disappeared in the Governorate of Hama in western central Syria between 2012 and 2014.

Between February and March 2013, two brothers of the Al Arnaout family were arrested in Homs by the Military Security. More than three years later, their whereabouts remain unknown. Concerned over their fate, Alkarama submitted in June 2016 their case to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID), hoping its intervention will help shed light on their fate.

In recent years, checkpoints have become a tool for the Syrian authorities to create a climate of fear in the country. Individuals passing checkpoints are systematically thoroughly scrutinised by the security services and are, if perceived as supporting the opposition, arrested and brought to unknown places of detention, their families being denied any information on their fate and whereabouts.