The National Commission for Detainees and Missing Persons held a workshop in the town of Azaz in northern rural Aleppo to discuss ways to coordinate the efforts to address the issue of detainees and missing persons.
Participants in the workshop agreed on the formation of an advisory work group to work with the Commission to achieve integration ensuring specialization and development of the performance of actors on the issue of detainees. The group will help coordinate the documentation, investigation, prosecution and accountability as well as providing support to the victims and establish mechanisms of political, legal and media action.
The workshop also saw the drawing up of a strategy for joint action and the distribution of tasks on the basis of coordination and mechanisms for implementation and follow-up.
The workshop brought together representatives of the Free Bar Associations of Aleppo, Dara’a, Homs, Idlib and Hama as well as the associations for detainees and female ex-detainees and local organizations and specialists on the issue of detainees and missing persons.
Participants discussed the reality of the issue of detainees in terms of documentation, investigation and communication with the relevant international organizations and bodies.
Coordinator of the Commission and member of the Coalition’s political committee, Yasser Al-Farhan, said that dozens of human rights organizations and rights activists are currently working on the issue of detainees and missing persons. He said that this work lacks mechanisms of coordination and integration, which leads to the disruption of efforts.
Al-Farhan pointed out that the workshop succeeded in forming a joint work group to cooperate in this important, complicated issue. (Source: Syrian National Coalition’s Media Department)
