BY: Thomas Lohnes/AFP/Getty
Paris – Statement by the Syrian Network for Human Rights:
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) believes that the German Public Prosecutor should include the charge of enforced disappearance against the defendant A.R. in his ongoing court trial in Koblenz, due to the organic link between arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance in all the Syrian regime’s detention centers, including al Khatib branch, and further notes that enforced disappearance has been followed by the Syrian regime in a systematic and widespread manner since the beginning of the popular uprising in 2011 up to the current date. In order to ensure that the charge of enforced disappearance is included, the Syrian Network for Human Rights has provided data on some of the individuals who were forcibly disappeared in the al Khatib branch during the period of the defendant A.R.’s tenure in the investigation department there. These materials and data were submitted to the Public Prosecutor through our partner, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, which has requested that the Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Fadel Abdul Ghany, be summoned to speak in court about the data on the forcibly disappeared persons that have been documented.
We further note that the Syrian Network for Human Rights had submitted similar data on the charge of torture, and has submitted a file containing data on 58 Syrian citizens who died due to torture in al Khatib branch during the period of the defendant A.R.’s tenure in the investigation department.
We believe strongly in the importance of working and intensifying efforts to include the charge of enforced disappearance in this trial, because the charges brought against A.R. are charges against him personally as a part of a system and policy followed by the Syrian regime, and therefore they constitute a condemnation of the Syrian regime itself at the same time.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights had submitted many items of data, whether for use in lawsuits such as the one filed in France against the Syrian regime’s use of barrel bombs, in which the director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights testified to the judge responsible for presiding over the lawsuit, or in files that are being prepared for presentation to public prosecutors in a number of other European countries.