SNHR has briefed the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on the case of the citizen, Mohannad Omar, a Palestinian-Syrian from al Yarmouk Camp in southern Damascus city, who was aged 27 at the time of his arrest in 2012. SNHR urged the UN Group to demand that the Syrian authorities release him immediately. He was arbitrarily arrested on February 29, 2012 by gunmen from the Syrian regime’s State Security Intelligence agency in a raid on his workplace, the Al-Alam TV Channel building in Damascus city. We have received no information on his fate or whereabouts since then, with his fate remaining unknown to SNHR as well as his family.
The Syrian authorities have denied any connection with the disappearance of Mohannad Omar. SNHR has been unable to determine his fate, as has his family, who fear that they may be arrested and tortured themselves if they continue to ask about his whereabouts and fate, as has happened in numerous previous cases.
SNHR has called on the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearance to intervene and to demand that the Syrian authorities release Mr. Omar immediately, as well as to expedite investigations into the fate of thousands of other forcibly disappeared citizens whose whereabouts and current conditions must also be revealed.