Articles for Syria

On 24 March 2016, Alkarama submitted its report on Syria's human rights record to the Human Rights Council (HRC) in view of the country's second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) – an interactive discussion between the State under review and other UN Member States on its human rights record –, which wi

During an arrest raid that took place on 14 May 2012, Syrian army officers abducted 29-year-old Shamel Najjar and his brother, 31-year old carpenter Tamer, taking both to an unknown location and later refusing to recognise their arrest and detention.

Over the last weeks, Alkarama received the testimonies of relatives of four men who disappeared following their arrests at various checkpoints in Syria between July 2012 and May 2015. All the arrests were conducted by members of the Security Services or the Military, who did not present a warrant nor inform the victims of the reasons of their arrest. The four men remain disappeared since.

Between 12 and 19 January 2016, Alkarama and Human Rights Guardians documented three cases of enforced disappearances that occurred in Syria between November 2011 and October 2013.

In March 2015, Ammar Al Hasan, a 20-year-old student detained in Al Malikiyah prison – one of the central Kurdish prisons in north-eastern Syria – was transferred to an unknown detention centre and subsequently disappeared. The Kurdish authorities have refused to provide any information about his whereabouts, and his family was never informed of the location he was brought to.

On 17 December 2012, Ali Al Shihabi, a Palestinian writer and former worker at the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East, was arrested by the Military Intelligence near the Al Yarmouk refugee Camp where he lived, most probably for his links with Syria's Communist Labor Party as well as his political writings.

In April 2011, car painter Jassim Al Shehab disappeared after his arrest by members of the Military Intelligence Division at a checkpoint in the Homs Governorate. Since then, his family has not been able to obtain any official information on his whereabouts.

In late December 2014, Hamrein Hussein, a 15-year-old Syrian Kurdish student from Amuda, was abducted on her way to school by a patrol of the People's Protection Units (YPG) – Syrian Kurdistan's armed forces – and forcibly enrolled.

On 25 November 2015, Alkarama wrote to several United Nations Special Procedures to encourage them to request a visit to Syria in order to raise the issues of enforced disappearance, torture and arbitrary detention.

In October 2012, Fadhil Othman, a 31-year-old concierge from Qamishli – a city in north-eastern Syria on the border with Turkey – disappeared from the national hospital where he was being treated after being shot by members of the Military Security at a checkpoint.