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The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has briefed the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on the case of Mohammad al-Saghir Hassan al-Taleb, born in 1988, from Aleppo city. He had been working at a restaurant in the Carrefour center in northwestern Aleppo at the time of his arrest. Mohammad was arrested on Saturday, March 24, 2012, at a checkpoint operated by the Syrian regime’s General Intelligence Directorate personnel near his workplace, and taken to an undisclosed location. His fate remains unknown to SNHR as well as his family.
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 Mohammad al-Saghir Hassan al-Taleb.
Syrian authorities have denied any connection with the enforced disappearance of Mohammad Saghir Hassan al-Taleb. SNHR has been unable to determine his fate, as have h family members, who fear that they may themselves be arrested and tortured by regime personnel if they continue to ask about his whereabouts and fate, as has happened in numerous previous cases.
SNHR has called on the UN 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 Syrian authorities release Mohammad 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 have died due to torture, with the number of citizens forcibly disappeared by the regime continuing to grow.