The SNHR has briefed the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on the case of the child Abdul Hadi Mohammad Doust, from Deir Ez-Zour city, a student at the secondary commercial school who was aged 17 at the time of his arrest. He was arrested arbitrarily on November 20, 2012, while passing through a checkpoint run by the Syrian Regime’s Military Security forces, near the skybridge area in Deir Ez-Zour city. His fate remains unknown to the SNHR as well as to his family.
The Syrian authorities have denied any connection with the disappearance of child Abdul Hadi Mohammad Doust. The SNHR has been unable to determine his fate, as have his family members, who fear that they may be arrested and tortured by regime personnel 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 Abdul Hadi 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.