The President of the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC), Hadi Al-Bahra, emphasized that the issue of detainees and missing persons is a national concern for all Syrian people. He pointed out that it transcends individual families, regions, and political parties, and instead touches every Syrian who values justice, freedom, and human dignity. These remarks were delivered by SOC member Asaad Alito on behalf of Al-Bahra at a conference on detainees, missing persons, and victims of torture in Assad regime prisons, held at Gaziantep University in Afrin, Aleppo countryside.
Al-Bahra condemned the Assad regime’s criminal actions, which have led to the arrest and expulsion of anyone who opposed its tyranny and injustice. He added that the regime has filled cells and detention centers with Syrians, subjecting them to extreme torture, to the extent that international organizations have described its prisons as “human slaughterhouses.”
He highlighted the Assad regime’s long history of arrests, suppression of freedoms, and violations against political and human rights activists. He noted that such practices began long before the revolution in 2011, dating back to when the Assad regime seized power over half a century ago.
Al-Bahra stated that the regime has used enforced disappearance as a primary weapon in its war on the Syrian people, as part of a broader strategy based on terrorism, killing, and disappearing people in prisons to divert attention from the country’s internal and external issues.
In his speech, Al-Bahra referenced the Qawiq River massacre, the Caesar photographs, and the Al-Tadamun Massacre as stark evidence of the Assad regime’s excessive brutality toward detainees.
He criticized the international community’s failure to address the tragedy of the detainees, noting the lack of progress in determining their fate or freeing them, despite the UN’s announcement in June of last year of an independent institution to uncover the fate of missing persons in Syria.
Al-Bahra praised the relentless efforts of revolutionary forces and institutions to liberate detainees, reveal the fate of the forcibly disappeared, and demand international committee inspections of prisons. These efforts, spanning many years, have not succeeded due to the international community’s lack of seriousness in implementing effective mechanisms to enforce UN resolutions to save the Syrian people, particularly the detainees.
He underscored that the demand to liberate detainees and forcibly disappeared persons in Assad regime prisons remains a fundamental and persistent issue, especially as the regime continues to use arrest and kidnapping as tools of repression and restriction of freedom.
Al-Bahra reiterated the priority of the detainees’ issue in all SOC meetings with officials and envoys from various countries, stressing the immense suffering and disappointment of the families of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons, and all Syrians, regarding the international community’s inability to contribute to any tangible positive efforts concerning their case.
He asserted that the issue of Syrian detainees is humanitarian and legal, and non-negotiable, rejecting the Assad regime’s use of it as a card for political blackmail. Al-Bahra called for intensified international efforts to liberate detainees, reveal the fate of the forcibly disappeared, and take necessary actions to save them. He also lauded the efforts of Syrian and international human rights organizations in achieving justice through national courts in European Union countries.
Al-Bahra concluded by emphasizing that the great sacrifices and suffering of detainees increase the responsibility of all to exert maximum effort to achieve what they sacrificed for: a free state based on justice and democracy, where human dignity and rights are preserved under the rule of law.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
