As many as 7,700 arbitrary arrests took place in Syria in 2018, the majority of which were made by the Assad regime, said the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) in a report released Thursday. It note that the detainees included 504 children and 699 women.
According to the report, the Assad regime forces detained at least 5,607 people, including 355 children and 596 women. The militia of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) detained 965 people, including 83 children and 74 women, the report added.
The monitoring group said that Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham militant group detained 417 people, including 15 children and three women. The ISIS extremist group detained 338 people, including 28 children and 13 women, while hardline militant groups detained 379 people, including 23 children and 13 women.
The report indicated that the arbitrary arrests reached their peak in March, with at least 1,096 arrests. It noted that 580 arrests took place in December 2018.
In a report released on Wednesday, the Network said that it compiled a list of the names of 976 detainees who were killed under torture in Syria in 2018, mostly in the prisons of the Assad regime.
The Network set forth a set of recommendations including calling on the UN Security Council to follow up on the implementation of resolutions 2042, 2043 and 2139, which call for an end to enforced disappearances, the immediate disclosure of information on the detainees, the release of children and women, and an end to the hostage-taking.
The watchdog group concluded its report by calling on the International Commission of Inquiry (COI) and the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) to launch investigation into arbitrary arrests documented in the report. It said it stood ready to cooperate and provide international organizations with more evidence and details. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
