The Syrian authorities have transferred the journalist and human rights activist Mazin Darwish from Damascus central prison -Adra prison-, where he was previously being detained, to an undisclosed place on the morning of 31 January, 2015. We haven’t been able to verify if the peaceful activist Hani Az-Zitani and the blogger Hussein Ghrier were also transferred from Adra central prison.
On 16 February, 2012, the Air Intelligence forces raided the headquarter of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression in Damascus and arrested everyone there. For nine months, Mazin, founder of the center, and four of his colleagues were forcibly-disappeared as no information regarding their fates were revealed. On 30 November the authorities transferred Mazin and his colleagues to Damascus central prison – Adra prison where they were charged under the eighth article of the terrorism law (promoting terrorist acts), which was adopted after they were arrested and was implemented in their case retroactively. The court agreed to continue the prosecution process of Mansour Al-Omari and Abdurrahman Hamada without detaining them while Mazin, Hussein Ghrier, and Hani Az-Zitani were kept detained during the prosecution process after the court rejected the defense’s appeal.