Dozens of human rights and legal organizations, alongside various Syrian political parties, media professionals, and human rights activists, are organizing a conference on detainees, missing persons, and torture victims in Assad regime prisons. This conference coincides with the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, which is marked on June 26th each year.
The conference features a series of events during “Detainees Week,” starting on June 20th in Afrin and moving to Istanbul, Rouen, Brussels, and The Hague, concluding in Berlin on June 30th.
The events include art exhibitions, plays, and demonstrations in liberated areas and Suwayda city. Artist Nawar Bulbul will present a play, Galatea, depicting the story of researcher and writer Michel Seurat, author of “Syria: The Barbarian State,” who was kidnapped by the Hezbollah Militia and handed over to the Assad regime, which subjected him to brutal torture until his death.
The organizers aim to draw attention to the plight of detainees, missing persons, and torture victims in Assad regime prisons. They seek to provide a continuous platform through a follow-up committee to amplify the voices of survivors, listen to their accounts of torture methods in detention, and work towards bringing those who ordered or participated in their torture to justice.
The conference emphasizes that the issue of detainees is non-negotiable and should not be part of negotiations with the regime. It also aims to pressure the international community to act to end the ongoing tragedy of detainees.
The conference calls for the prosecution of those who ordered and participated in the torture of detainees and demands the revelation of the fate of Lebanese and Palestinian detainees in regime prisons. It stresses that the crime of torture in detention does not expire over time, supporting organizations specializing in detainee affairs to pursue and prosecute anyone involved in the torture of political or opinion detainees.
Additionally, the conference seeks popular support for human rights institutions working to secure trials for regime figures and de facto authorities who issued torture orders. It aims to create a sustained demand among the Syrian people for the release of detainees and the prosecution of their torturers.
The conference also calls on all de facto authorities, especially Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the PYD terrorist militia, to release political detainees and those imprisoned for their opinions.
Finally, the conference highlights the situation of survivors, urging official and non-official institutions to secure employment for them, especially women.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
