Syria - Justice for the thousands of victims of enforced disappearances
We, the undersigned civil society organisations, commemoratethe victims of enforced disappearances in Syria and support their families,urging the international community to support their demand to ensure justice,truth and reparation and the immediate release of all those enforcedly held insecret detention. As the world marks today the International Day of Victims ofEnforced Disappearances, our organisations condemn the continued and systematicuse of enforced disappearance which amounts to acrime against humanity committed by the Syrian government. To silenceits critics and instil fear among communities, the Syrian government adoptedthis practice towards its civilians and deployed it systematically after thestart of the peaceful protests in 2011. We also call upon all armed groups to theconflict to promptly release all those held disappeared and disclose theirfates and whereabouts.
Since the rise of the peaceful protests in Syria, ourorganisations have been monitoring, documenting and campaigning on cases of hundredsof Syrian individuals who have been subjected to enforced disappearance. Manyof those are women and children. Thousands of family members of those disappearedare struggling for justice in their dangerous and impossible quest to find thefate and whereabouts of their loved ones. They experience mental and emotionalanguish, while placed outside the protection of the law, and are oftenblackmailed, manipulated and used by brokers. The struggle for justice must notcease, accountability towards enforced disappearance must be high on the agendaof all international peace making and negotiations on Syria which might takeplace.
We call for justice for Bassel Khartabil, aSyrian-Palestinian software engineer and free speech activist, who wassubjected to extrajudicial execution by a military field court in October 2015and whose fate only became known in August 2017. On 15 March 2012, MilitaryIntelligence had arrested Bassel Khartabil and held him incommunicado for eightmonths.
We urge the Syrian government to immediatelydisclose the fate and whereabouts of tens of thousands of victims of enforceddisappearances including Syrian lawyer Khalil Maatouk, whose whereabouts areunknown since he was arrested at a government military checkpoint in October2012. We call on the armed opposition groups to release Syrian human rights defenders,including Razan Zaitouneh Samira Khalil, Wael Hamadeh and Nazem Hammadi, whowere kidnapped from the Violations Documentation Center (VDC) offices by armed,masked gunmen in Douma on 9 December 2013.
We collectively call for the immediate release of alldetainees held in Syria for peacefully exercising their legitimate rights tofreedom of expression and association. We urge both the Syrian government andarmed opposition groups to immediately disclose the fate of those disappearedand stop arbitrarily arresting, abducting and detaining people for theirpeaceful, journalistic, and humanitarian activities – in line with UnitedNations Security Council resolution 2139, which demands ‘the release of allarbitrarily detained’ in Syria.
We specifically call on the Syrian government to:
1. Ensure thatno further executions of detained human rights defenders occur, and cease theirsubjections to any military or ad-hoc court such as the Counter-Terrorism Court;
2. Transfer alldetainees to known and recognised places of detention, and allow visits toprisons by their families, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and otherrelevant committees;
3. Allow accessto UN officials including the Independent International Commission of Inquiryon Syria to conduct impartial investigations into the tens of thousands of enforceddisappearances in Syria since 2011;
4. Ensure theregistration of all detainees' data, inform them of their detention grounds,and ensure that they have access to the necessary healthcare;
5. Promptlyaccede, without making any reservation, to the International Convention for theProtection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; and implement it fullyunder national law. In addition, Syrian authorities should recognize competenceof the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to receive and considercommunication from or on behalf of victims or other states parties;
6. Ensure thatall participants in the search for victims of enforced disappearance, inparticular relatives of detainees, are protected from ill-treatment, smuggling,retaliation, arrests and enforced disappearance;
7. Ensure thatall survivors of enforced disappearance, released persons, families of deceasedvictims, and their relatives receive justice, truth and reparation - includingmaterial compensation, rehabilitation and restitution of property; ensure thatsuch a crime does not recur and that all those suspected of criminalresponsibility are brought to justice in fair trials before ordinary civiliancourts and without recourse to death penalty.
We specifically call on armed opposition groups to:
1. Promptly release any personsubject to enforced disappearance;
2. Submit lists of the names ofthe kidnapped and disappeared to their families and to relevant internationalorganisations
Signed:
1. Amnesty International
2. Badael Foundation
3. CIVICUS
4. EuroMed Rights (EMR)
5. Front Line Defenders
6. Families for Freedom
7. Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
8. HIVOS
9. Human Rights Guardians
10. Impunity Watch
11. International Federation for Human rights (FIDH)
12. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
13. Justice for Life Organization (JFL)
14. Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)
15. PAX for Peace
16. PEN international
17. Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research (SCLSR)
18. Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
19. Syrian Institute for Justice and Accountability (SIJ)
20. Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ)
21. Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR)
22. The Day After (TDA)
23. The Syrian Archive
24. URNAMMU
25. Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC)
26. World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)