Free Prominent Rights Defenders - Armed Groups Should End Harassment, Abductions

May 27, 2014 – A prominent human rightsdefender and three of her colleagues believed to be in the custody of an armedopposition group should immediately be freed, 45 civil society organizations saidtoday. Razan Zeitouneh, Wael Hamada, Samira Khalil, and Nazem Hammadiwere abducted on December 9, 2013, in Douma, a city outside Damascus underthe control of a number of armed opposition groups.

The armed groups exercising de facto control over Douma should release theactivists if they are in their custody, or investigate their abduction and workfor their release, the organizations said. The armed groups in Douma includethe Army of Islam, headed by Zahran Alloush, which maintains a large armedpresence in the area. Countries supportive ofthese groups, and religious leaders who can influence them, should also pressfor the immediate and unconditional release of the activists and for an end toabductions, the organizations said.

For nearly six months Zeitouneh and hercolleagues have been deprived of their freedom while their families worry abouttheir fate and their communities suffer from the absence of their importantwork and leadership, the organizations said. The fighters exercising controlover Douma have a responsibility to them and to their communities to securetheir release.”

A group of armed men abducted Zeitouneh; Hamada, who is Zeitouneh’s husband;Khalil and Hammadi from their office at the Violations Documentation Center(VDC) in Douma. A statement by the VDC said that “an unknown armed group” hadstormed into the office, confiscated laptops and documents, and abducted the rightsdefenders on December 9. Since then, there has been no information on thehealth, status or whereabouts of Zeitouneh and her team, and no group hasclaimed responsibility for their abduction or made requests in return for theirrelease.

A few months before her abduction, Zeitounehan hadbeen receiving threats, which she wroteabout in the online news outlet Now Lebanon. She had also informed human rightsactivists outside Syriain September that she was being threatened by local armed groups in Douma. In April2014, Zeitouneh’s family issued a statementholding Alloush responsible for her and her colleagues’ wellbeing, given thelarge presence his group maintains in the area.

Zeitouneh, a lawyer who founded the VDC and co-founded the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network ofcivilian local groups that organizes and reports on protests, had beenthreatened by the government and by anti-government groups over her humanrights work.

Zeitouneh and the others are among a numberof journalists and human rights defenders believed to have been abducted at thehands of non-state armed opposition groups in areas under their control. Theirongoing detention is a part of a wider campaign of threats and harassmentagainst people seeking to expose abuses by armed opposition groups in Syria,the groups said.

The organizations urged both government and armed opposition groups tostop arbitrarily arresting, abducting and detaining people for their peaceful, journalistic, and humanitarian activities – inline with United Nations Security Council resolution 2139, which demandsthe release of all arbitrarily detained people in Syria.

Armed groups exercising de facto control inDouma should do all they can to facilitate the release of peaceful activistsand journalists, including by mediating with groups both in and outside Douma,and end abductions in areas under their control.

Abductions of humanrights defenders by armed groups in Syriaare an assault on the very freedoms the armed opposition groups claim to befighting for, the organizations said.

Co-signing organizations in alphabeticalorder: