Syria: Entire family disappeared since March 2013
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Members of the Yasin family were arrested on 9 and 11 March 2013 by the Syrian Military Intelligence at their home in Damascus. Rania, Abdul Rahman, Dima, Entisar, Najah, Alaa, Ahmad and Lian have been disappeared ever since... It has been over a year and their fate and whereabouts remain unknown. In December 2013, some relatives learnt through unofficial channels that they may be held at the Military Intelligence's Branch 215, the central branch of the Military Intelligence located in Damascus. On 13 March 2014, Alkarama solicited the intervention of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances with the Syrian authorities to ensure that the relatives of the disappeared be immediately informed of the Yasin family's fate and whereabouts and that they be released or placed under the protection of the law in the shortest possible delay.
Rania Al Abassi, Abdul Rahman Yasin and their six children, aged between 2 and 15, used to live in an apartment in Section 43 of the Dummar Project Suburb (New Sham) in Damascus, in front of Youssouf Al Kindi School. Rania was working as a dentist, her husband was working in real estate.
On 9 March 2013, Military Intelligence searched the family's house without providing an explanation or a search warrant and arrested Abdul Rahman Yasin, also without providing a judicial decision. The following day, 10 March, he was again taken to his home and the military personnel seized all valuable belongings – including money, jewellery, deeds of ownership for real estate and three cars – and confiscated the family's passports, mobile phones and computers. On this occasion, Rania Al Abbasi was told that she would be arrested the following day. For fear that her husband may bear the consequences and as she was convinced that she had done nothing against the law, she refrained from hiding or leaving the country.
On 11 March, at noon, around twenty men from the Military Intelligence returned to the family's house to arrest Dr Al Abbasi and her six children. All of them were taken away to an undisclosed location. Dr Al Abbasi, Mr Yasin and their children have not been in contact with the outside world since their arrest. They have been disappeared ever since.
Over the course of the past year, relatives of the family have received information on their possible whereabouts on two occasions. First, at the end of March 2013, a person who had been held at the Military Intelligence's Branch 291, 6 May Street, Damascus, reported that Dr Al Abbasi and her children had been in the adjacent cell, as the detainee had learned from one of the guards. Later, in December 2013, the family received unofficial information that Dr Al Abbasi and her family were at the Military Intelligence's Branch 215, which is located on the same street as Branch 291.
Alkarama is extremely concerned by the enforced disappearance of the Yasin family as they are at high risk of being tortured and executed while being secretly detained by the Military Intelligence. On 13 March 2014, we solicited the urgent intervention of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances with the Syrian authorities to ensure that the victims' relatives be immediately informed of the Yasin family's fate and whereabouts and that they be subsequently released or placed under the protection of the law in the shortest possible delay.
In a recent report, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria concluded that "enforced disappearances are perpetrated as part of a widespread campaign of terror against the civilian population. Government forces have engaged in enforced disappearance in violation of their international legal obligations. (...) There are reasonable grounds to believe that enforced disappearances were committed by Government forces, as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, and therefore amount to a crime against humanity."
Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, Alkarama has been documenting hundreds of cases of enforced disappearance and sent the information on those to the UN Special Procedures.
See recent cases of enforced disappearance in Syria sent by Alkarama to the UN:
Ghazala Shabo and her two children