SNHR has filed the case of the forcibly-disappeared Syrian citizen and university student “Amer Balhoos”, 18 years old then, to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and asked the team to demand that the Syrian authorities release him. Abd al-Aziz was arrested arbitrarily on a checkpoint affiliated to the political security in Ensha’at neighborhood in Homs on 22 November 2012. The army personnel were wearing military clothes and didn’t show an arrest warrant that authorizes them to carry out the arresting. He was forcibly-disappeared in al-Faihaa branch in Damascus for about ten months before he was transported to Adra Central Prison, where he spent three months. Then, he was forcibly-disappeared again on 1 January 2014 from Adra Central Prison without accusing him of any charge by the Syrian authorities.
Since his arrest, his family didn’t get any news about his location. He has been forcibly-disappeared since then and his fate remains unknown while the case was filed to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on 13 January 2015.
The Syrian authorities deny that it arrested “Amer Balhoos”. SNHR, as well as his family, hasn’t been able to determine his fate. His family fears that they might get arrested and tortured if they asked about him repeatedly which what happened in many cases.