The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that it has recorded the arrest of 647 people in July, mostly by Assad forces. It said that the Assad regime pursues policies aimed at the intimidation of civilians and denying them their basic rights which were enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Network pointed out that 419 people were detained in areas under the control of the Assad regime, including 51 women and 36 children. Previous reports by the monitoring group contained lists of thousands of names of detainees who died under torture. The Assad regime has recently begun publishing these names with the aim of blackmailing families of the victims.
The Network pointed out that Assad forces and their allied militias conducted a large-scale arrest campaign in July, detaining civilians, government employees and university students aged between 18 and 42 years old for forced recruitment. The rights group stressed the need to keep focus on the issue of detainees as more than half a million Syrians, including women and children, have been detained since the beginning of the revolution. The fate of many of those is still unknown after they were forcibly disappeared.
The Network said that it had documented the names of more than 118,000 people who had been detained by the Assad regime since March 2011, adding that the real number could be much higher. It called on the international community and the UN Security Council to launch urgent, serious investigation into the issue of detainees. It also called upon the International Commission of Inquiry, the United Nations, and guarantors of the conflicting parties to fully assume their responsibilities towards the crimes against humanity.
Meanwhile, the Assad regime continues to issue death notices for detainees who died under torture in its prisons. It has recently begun sending names of the deceased to civil registry departments. The lists included 1,000 names of detainees from the Damascus suburb of Darayya, 750 from Hasaka, 550 from Aleppo, and 30 from the town of Yabroud. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
