Human rights activists said that the Assad regime forces detained dozens of returning Syrian refugees from Lebanon at the Masnaa’ border crossing west of Damascus.
Head of the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research, Anwar al-Bunni, on Tuesday told Smart news network that the Assad regime forces have detained more than 20 returning refugees at the border crossing in the past few days.
Al-Bunni said that the Assad regime withdrew the identity papers and personal documents from the detainees and transferred them to security branches on the grounds that they are wanted for the reserve military service. The returnees decided to enter Syria after they had “regularized their status” with the regime, which gave them a period of six months to complete their papers.
Al-Bunni hinted to the involvement of Lebanese security authorities in forcing the Syrian refugees in the refugee camps on its territory to return to Syria by telling them to sign papers for statistics purposes. However, the refugees later found that the papers they signed were deportation orders and that they had to leave within just one month.
In a similar vein, Al-Modoun newspaper said that the Assad regime forces detained returning Syrian refugees at the Judaidat Yabous border crossing. The newspaper reported that after the refugees entered the Syrian territory and after the state-run TV finished filming, a joint force of the Military Security and Air Force Intelligence stopped three buses carrying the returnees. After the security forces searched the busses, they ordered 20 young men to get off and get onto a bus belonging to security forces.
The Assad regime on October 9 issued a general amnesty for military deserters and draft dodgers who are living inside Syria and abroad. However, the regime’s security services continued to detain those who turned themselves over to the Assad regime.
The Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research is a non-profit organization dedicated to the defense of human rights. Founded in early 2004 in Damascus, the group comprises lawyers and human rights activists. It was registered in Germany in early 2015. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)
