SNHR has briefed the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on the case of the citizen Hussein Ismail Hamido, from Mennegh town in the northern suburbs of Aleppo governorate, a military dissident, who was aged 19 at the time of his arrest. SNHR urged the UN body to demand that the Syrian authorities release him immediately. Mr. Hamido was arrested arbitrarily on December 19, 2012, following a raid on his place of residence in al Zahera al Jadida neighborhood in Damascus by the Syrian regime’s Air Security forces. His fate remains unknown to SNHR as well as to his family.
The Syrian authorities have denied any connection with the disappearance of the citizen Hussein Ismail Hamido. SNHR has been unable to determine his fate, as have his family members, 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. Hamido 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.