Chief of the Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea called on the UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, to offer help in solving the issue of Lebanese detainees in the prisons of the Assad regime and revealing their fate many years after their arrest.
A delegation of the Lebanese Forces on Thursday handed the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubis, a letter from the party’s leader, Samir Geagea, addressing UN Special Envoy Geir Pederson on the Lebanese detained and missing in Syria, the official NNA news agency reported on Thursday.
The letter called on the United Nations to “intervene urgently with the Syrian authorities in order to disclose the fate of hundreds of Lebanese detainees many years after their enforced disappearance.” The letter coincided with renewed international political push on Syria, especially in the issue of detainees.
The letter added: “These were arrested on Lebanese and Syrian territories not for criminal charges but for political reasons related to their political, partisan or sectarian affiliations and their views of the Syrian presence in Lebanon.”
The letter came one day after the UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo said that more than 100,000 people in Syria have been detained, abducted or gone missing during the eight-year conflict, with the Assad regime mainly responsible. She called for the release of those arbitrarily detained or abducted, and most urgently, women, children, the sick and elderly.
Following their entry into Lebanon in 1990, the Assad regime forces and security services arrested hundreds of Lebanese citizens on various political charges. Despite the repeated calls by the Lebanese authorities for the release of the abducted and the disclosure of the fate of the detainees, the Assad regime remained silent about the issue. (Source: Syrian National Coalition’s Media Department)
