Member of the Syrian Opposition Coalition’s (SOC) political committee, Salwa Aksoy, stressed the need for the international community to ratchet up pressure on the Assad regime in order to force it to release the detainees and disclose the fate of the forcibly disappeared.
Aksoy stressed that detention is a major tool of terrorism that repressive regimes use against their people. She said these regimes will not abandon this tool unless they come under real international pressure, stressing the need for continued efforts by the international organizations and the Syrian people to follow up on this issue which affects every Syrian citizen today.
Aksoy made these remarks at a symposium held by the Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies on Thursday under the title “The Issue of the Forcibly Disappeared in Syria: Their Fate and Solutions?” Participants included Head of the National Commission for the Affairs of the Detainees and Missing Yasser Al-Farhan, researcher at the European Institute for Political Initiatives and Strategic Analysis, Basem Hatahet, and rights activist and journalist Ali Tabbab.
The symposium discussed the major challenges of working on the issue of detainees and effective ways to put pressure on dictatorial regimes, especially the Assad regime. Aksoy spoke about the international community’s failure to assume its responsibilities with regard to releasing detainees and disclosing the fate of the forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime.
Syrian activists had earlier launched an event under the title “Don’t Let Them Down” to advocate for the detainees and forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime. The event aims to convey a message to the world that Syrians from all backgrounds are united in stressing the need to address the issue of detainees, demanding access to Assad’s prisons, and the release of detainees from these prisons.
The event seeks to organize stand-in protests in European capitals and in the liberated areas in northern Syria in support of the detainees. It also seeks to organize an exhibition for the belongings of detainees and send messages to the United Nations and European Union urging them to address this humanitarian issue.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
