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The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has briefed the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on the case of the citizen, Ahmad Ibrahim al Tawwal, born in 1974, who was a plumber and electrician at the time of his arrest. Ahmad, from Deir Ez-Zour city, was arrested by the Syrian regime’s Military Security Force personnel on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, while he was passing through one of the regime’s checkpoints on the road to al Assad Hospital in Deir Ez-Zour city, and was taken to Seydnaya Military Prison in Damascus Suburbs governorate, where his family was able to visit him for the last time in 2014. Since that date, he has been forcibly disappeared.
Ahmad’s sister and fellow citizen, Fatimah, born in 1975, from al Joura neighborhood in Deir Ez-Zour city, who was a housewife at the time of her arrest, was also arrested, along with the young daughter of another of his sisters, Yusra, named Yasmin Hadi Ahmad al Abdullah, born in 1996, from Deir Ez-Zour city, by personnel from the Syrian regime’s Military Security Force on Tuesday, November 6, 2012, while the child and her aunt were on Military Police Street in Deir Ez-Zour city, with both taken to an undisclosed location. Since that date, both have been forcibly disappeared.
Three years later, Ahmad’s and Fatimah’s brother and fellow citizen Muhammed, born in 1970, also from Deir Ez-Zour city, who was working as a clothes seller at the time of his arrest, was arrested by the Syrian regime’s Military Security Force personnel on Friday, April 24, 2015, in a raid on his home in the main street of al Joura neighborhood of Deir Ez-Zour city, near al Kura al Ardiyya Roundabout, and was taken to an undisclosed location. Since that date, he has been forcibly disappeared. The fate of all three siblings and their niece remains unknown to the SNHR, as well as to their families.
The SNHR has also briefed the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, as well as briefing the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, specifically in regard to the case of the siblings Ahmad, Fatimah, and Muhammad al Tawwal, and the child Yasmin al Abdullah.
The Syrian authorities have denied any connection with the enforced disappearance of the siblings Ahmad, Fatimah, and Muhammad al Tawwal, and the child Yasmin al Abdullah. The SNHR has been unable to determine their fate, as have their family members, who fear that they may be arrested and tortured by regime personnel themselves if they continue to ask about their whereabouts and fate, as has happened in numerous previous cases.
The SNHR has called on the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearance, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, to intervene and to demand that the Syrian authorities release them immediately, as well as to secure the release of thousands of other forcibly disappeared citizens whose whereabouts and current conditions must also be revealed.
Although the Syrian government is not a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, it is indisputably a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Arab Charter on Human Rights. Enforced disappearance constitutes a violation of both instruments.
SNHR also confirms that there are well-founded fears that many of those forcibly disappeared by the Syrian regime since 2011 may have been subjected to torture and possibly killed in regime detention, with the number of citizens forcibly disappeared by the regime continuing to grow.