Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest monthly report released today that no fewer than 206 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented in September 2024, with those detained including nine children and 17 women. The group also noted that the Syrian regime has arrested nine refugees who returned from Lebanon amid the Israeli offensive.

The 21-page report notes that, given the staggering rates of continuing arbitrary arrests, the number of Syrian citizens classified as missing has skyrocketed, so much so that this can be called a phenomenon in itself. Indeed, Syria is now one of the worst countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of ‘disappeared’ citizens. The report adds that the Syrian regime surpasses many of the world’s other authoritarian regimes by virtue of having absolute hegemony over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The regime has wielded this hegemony to promulgate a multitude of laws and decrees that violate international human rights law, as well as the principles pf law and the parameters of arrests and interrogation established in domestic legislation and the current Constitution of 2012. A part of this process, the report stresses, is legitimizing the crime of torture. Syrian law contains several texts that outlaw torture, including Article 53 of the current Syrian constitution which bans arbitrary arrest and torture and Article 391 of the Public Penal Code, which provides that anyone who uses coercion during interrogation shall receive a timed prison sentence ranging from three months to three years, as well as wholly prohibiting torture. Despite these texts, however, other legal texts, including Law No. 16 of 2022 on Criminalizing Torture, explicitly contradict the aforementioned legal articles, and legitimize impunity for torturers.

The report summarizes the arbitrary arrests/detentions and the releases of detainees from various detention centers documented as having been perpetrated by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in September 2024. The report does not, however, include abductions carried out by unidentified parties. Another exception made by SNHR is of individuals detained for committing criminal offenses, such as murder, theft, narcotics-related crimes, and other crimes that have no political nature or are unrelated to the armed conflict, dissident activism, or freedom of opinion and expression. The report also touches upon the laws and decrees promulgated by the parties to the conflict in relation to issues of arrest and enforced disappearance in the period covered. In much of its reportage, the report incorporates a descriptive and analytical methodology.

The report documents no fewer than 206 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in September 2024, with those detained including nine children and 17 women (adult females). Of these, 158 have subsequently been classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 128 of the 206 cases, including of four children and 16 women, while all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) were responsible for 38 cases, with those arrested including two children one woman. Additionally, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for 21 cases, including of three children, while Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were responsible for 19 cases.

The report also shows the distribution of September’s cases across Syria’s governorates. Analysis of the data shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of arbitrary arrests/detentions, followed by Damascus governorate, then in descending order, Rural Damascus, Hama and Idlib, Homs, Daraa, and Deir Ez-Zour. The report additionally compares the number of arbitrary arrests/detentions carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria with the numbers of releases of detainees from the various forces’ detention centers documented in September 2024. In this regard, the report stresses that the number of arbitrary arrests far surpasses the number of releases from detention centers, with the number of releases equaling approximately 30 percent of all the detentions documented; this confirms again that at least two or three times as many people are detained as are released, primarily by the Syrian regime, which indicates that these arrest and detention practices are standard policy in comparison to the extremely limited numbers of people released by all parties to the conflict, but mainly from regime detention centers.

The report further notes that Syrian regime forces carried out more arrests/detentions of refugees returning from Lebanon, as they fled the escalating Israeli offensive that has been going on since September 23. These arrests took place at the formal and informal border crossings separating Lebanon and Syria. Most of those arrested were taken to the regime’s security and military detention centers in the governorates of Homs and Damascus. SNHR documented the arrest of at least nine refugees returning from Lebanon, most of them originally from Rural Damascus governorate, on the pretext of having failed to join the army or reserve forces as required by the regime’s conscription policies.

Moreover, the report notes that regime forces arrested/detained a number of activists in Latakia city, over their voicing criticism of the regime’s security and economic policies. These activists were taken to regime detention centers in Latakia city. The report also recorded arrests/detentions targeting civilians, including women and children, trying to return from areas under the control of armed opposition factions and HTS to their original residences in regime-held areas. These arrests were concentrated at checkpoints erected at the entrances to Damascus city. Most of those arrested were released a few days later from security branches in Damascus city.

The report also documents widespread arrests/detentions of civilians by regime personnel in the governorates of Rural Damascus, Damascus, Hama, and Aleppo on the pretext of their having failed to join the regime’s military or reserve forces as part of its mandatory military service policy. These arrests were carried out during raids or mass arrests at checkpoints, and even targeted individuals who had previously agreed to settle their security status with the regime in the areas that saw settlement agreements. Most of these arrests were carried out by the security branches for the purpose of extorting ransom money from the detainees’ families.

On a related note, the report stresses that, through the arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances carried out in September, the Syrian regime continues to violate the orders of the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued in November 2023 on requesting provisional measures in the case brought by Canada and the Netherlands against the Syrian regime on the application of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Meanwhile, the report notes, the SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in September 2024. In pursuit of these policies, SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led Coalition helicopters. The report also documented arrests/detentions of civilians over accusations of working with the SNA. Moreover, we documented more arrests/detention of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF military training and recruitment camps, which are concentrated in SDF-controlled areas of Aleppo governorate. The SDF also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training, with these children being sent to military training camps. The parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, HTS detained more civilians in September 2024. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate and some areas of rural Aleppo governorate under the group’s control, targeted media activists, political activists, and local dignitaries. Most of these arrests were carried out in connection with the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely and arbitrarily carried out in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. We also documented arrests/detentions mostly carried out as part of raids and mass arrests, or at checkpoints in Idlib governorate that targeted individuals over their participation in the recent anti-HTS protests in the governorate. Most of these arrests were concentrated in Idlib city. We also recorded arrests/detentions of a number of individuals over their alleged affiliation with the anti-HTS Tahrir Party. These arrests were concentrated in Idlib governorate.

Furthermore, the report goes on, armed opposition factions/SNA continued carrying out arbitrary arrests/detentions and kidnappings in September 2024, including of women. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, the report documents detentions during this period that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative body with the authority to carry out arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. The report also documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF, with these arrests being concentrated in some of the villages which are administratively part of Afrin city in Aleppo governorate. We also recorded arrests/detentions by SNA personnel of civilians returning to their houses in SNA-held areas, with these arrests being concentrated in Afrin city. Furthermore, the report recorded arrests carried out by the SNA’s al-Sultan Suleiman Shah Division targeting a number of civilians for refusing to pay charges imposed by al-Sultan Suleiman Shah group for the olive trees owned by those individuals. These arrests were concentrated in Kakhra village, administratively a part of Afrin city, in northern Aleppo governorate.

On the subject of releases, the report documents the release of 23 individuals by Syrian regime forces, including four children and 14 women. One of the releases was in connection with the amnesty decree promulgated by the Syrian regime on April 30, 2022 (Decree No. 7 of 2022). In Damascus governorate, the report reveals, the regime released three individuals. The detainees in question were released after serving the full term of their arbitrary sentence. As such, these releases were not related to any of the amnesty decrees that have been promulgated to date, with each of the released detainees having been imprisoned for about two years in regime detention centers. The report also documents the release of 19 individuals, including four children and 14 women, all of whom had been held for a few days without trial and without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Rural Damascus, Aleppo, and Daraa, with the majority having spent the duration of their detention in regime security branches.

As the report further reveals, 29 individuals were released from SDF detention centers. Twenty-six of these were released in connection with Amnesty Act No. 10 of 2024, promulgated by the group on July 17, 2024, which pardons crimes committed by Syrian nationals prior to that date. Those released had been detained for periods ranging from three months to one year, with most of them hailing originally from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour and Hasaka.

The report also documents HTS’ release of seven individuals from its detention centers in Idlib governorate, with the released detainees having been detained for periods ranging from a few days to three months, without any clear charges being brought against them.

Elsewhere, all armed opposition factions/SNA released 24 individuals, including one child, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to a few months without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most were released only after their families had been extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

As the report further notes, SNHR’s data is now viewed as a reputable principal source of information by many UN bodies, being used in numerous statements and resolutions. The most recent of these was a draft resolution on the human rights situation in Syria (A/C.3/78/L.43), passed by a vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, which condemned the Syrian regime’s continuation of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This latest resolution also acknowledged that the number of detainees in Syria continues to rise steadily, already exceeding 135,000. Relatedly, the resolution holds the regime responsible for the systematic use of enforced disappearance, which, it notes, constitutes a crime against humanity.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015, and finally in the statement on cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Approximate 68 percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report further notes that, in light of the continuing high rates of arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearance at the hands of Syrian regime forces, we have seen no indicator of any willingness on the Syrian regime’s part to end torture or comply with the ICJ’s order for provisional measures since it was issued on November 16, 2023. Even worse, the regime continues to imprison at least 136,614 arbitrarily arrested detainees/forcibly disappeared persons in its detention centers, all of whom are still being subjected to torture, which further confirms that the Syrian regime explicitly continues to contravene the Convention against Torture, which the regime ratified in 2004, and continues to fail to comply with the Convention.

The report additionally notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army) are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they too have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the UN Security Council to follow through with the implementation of UN Security Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN must form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 112,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a set timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and that families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

Download the full report

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest monthly report released today that no fewer than 214 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented in August 2024, with those detained including 13 children and seven women. The group also noted that the Syrian regime has arrested 19 refugees who were forcibly deported from Lebanon.

The 21-page report notes that, given the staggering rates of continuing arbitrary arrests, the number of Syrian citizens classified as missing has skyrocketed, so much so that this can be called a phenomenon in itself. Indeed, Syria is now one of the worst countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of ‘disappeared’ citizens. The report adds that the Syrian regime surpasses many of the world’s other authoritarian regimes by virtue of having absolute hegemony over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The regime has wielded this hegemony to promulgate a multitude of laws and decrees that violate international human rights law, as well as the principles pf law and the parameters of arrests and interrogation established in domestic legislation and the current Constitution of 2012. A part of this process, the report stresses, is legitimizing the crime of torture. Syrian law contains several texts that outlaw torture, including Article 53 of the current Syrian constitution which bans arbitrary arrest and torture and Article 391 of the Public Penal Code, which provides that anyone who uses coercion during interrogation shall receive a timed prison sentence ranging from three months to three years, as well as wholly prohibiting torture. Despite these texts, however, other legal texts, including Law No. 16 of 2022 on Criminalizing Torture, explicitly contradict the aforementioned legal articles, and legitimize impunity for torturers.

The report summarizes the arbitrary arrests/detentions and the releases of detainees from various detention centers documented as having been carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in August 2024. The report does not, however, include abductions carried out by unidentified parties. Another exception made by SNHR is of individuals detained for committing criminal offenses, such as murder, theft, narcotics-related crimes, and other crimes that have no political nature or are unrelated to the armed conflict, dissident activism, or freedom of opinion and expression. The report also touches upon the laws and decrees promulgated by the parties to the conflict in relation to issues of arrest and enforced disappearance in the period covered. In much of its reportage, the report incorporates a descriptive and analytical methodology.

The report documents no fewer than 214 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in August 2024, with those detained including 13 children and seven women (adult females). Of these, 173 have subsequently been classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 113 of the 214 cases, including of three children and one woman, while all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) were responsible for 46 cases, with those arrested including six children and five women. Additionally, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for 37 cases, including of four children and one woman, while Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were responsible for 18 cases.

The report also shows the distribution of August’s cases across Syria’s governorates. Analysis of the data shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of arbitrary arrests/detentions, followed by Rural Damascus governorate, then in descending order, Deir Ez-Zour, Damascus, Homs, Hama and Idlib, and Daraa. The report additionally compares the number of arbitrary arrests/detentions carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria with the numbers of releases of detainees from the various forces’ detention centers documented in August 2024. In this regard, the report stresses that the number of arbitrary arrests far surpasses the number of releases from detention centers, with the number of releases equaling approximately 30 percent of all the detentions documented; this confirms again that at least two or three times as many people are detained as are released, primarily by the Syrian regime, which indicates that these arrest and detention practices are standard policy in comparison to the extremely limited numbers of people released by all parties to the conflict, but mainly from regime detention centers.

The report further notes that Syrian regime forces carried out more arrests/detentions of refugees who had been forcibly repatriated from Lebanon. These arrests, which took place at the al-Masna Border Crossing on the Syrian-Lebanese border, were carried out after the Lebanese army had carried out raid and arrest campaigns targeting Syrian refugees in Lebanon who were then transferred to the border for deportation. Most of those arrested at the border by Syrian regime forces were taken to security and military detention centers in the governorates of Homs and Damascus. Moreover, the report notes that regime forces carried out widespread arrests/detentions of civilians in the governorates of Rural Damascus, Damascus, Hama, and Aleppo on the pretext of the detainees failing to join the regime’s military or reserve forces as part of its mandatory military service policy. These arrests were carried out during raids or mass arrests at checkpoints, and even targeted individuals who had previously agreed to settle their security status with the regime in the areas that saw settlement agreements. Most of these arrests were carried out by the security branches for the purpose of extorting ransom money from the family. There were also a number of arrests/detentions by regime forces targeting civilians trying to return from areas under the control of armed opposition factions and the HTS to their original residences in regime-held areas, as well as several arrests/detentions by regime forces targeting citizens, including children, in the governorates of Daraa, Deir Ez-Zour, and Aleppo. Most of these arrests were carried out as part of raids and mass arrests, as well as at checkpoints.

On a related note, the report stresses that, through these arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances carried out in August, the Syrian regime continues to violate the orders of the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued on November 16, 2023, on requesting provisional measures in the case brought by Canada and the Netherlands against the Syrian regime on the application of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Meanwhile, the report notes, the SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in August 2024. In pursuit of these policies, SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led Coalition helicopters. We also documented arrests/detentions of civilians over accusations of working with the SNA. Moreover, we documented more arrests/detention of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF military training and recruitment camps, which are concentrated in SDF-controlled areas of Aleppo governorate. Additionally, the report documented a number of arrests targeting individuals accused of being affiliated with the Arab tribes’ forces. Those arrests were concentrated in Deir Ez-Zour governorate. The SDF also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training, with these children being sent to military training camps. The parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, HTS detained more civilians in August 2024. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate and some areas of rural Aleppo governorate under the group’s control, targeted media activists, political activists, and local dignitaries. Most of these arrests were carried out in connection with the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely and arbitrarily carried out in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. We also documented arrests/detentions mostly carried out as part of raids and mass arrests, or at checkpoints in Idlib governorate that targeted individuals over their participation in the recent anti-HTS protests in the governorate. Most of these arrests were concentrated in Ariha city.

Furthermore, the report states, armed opposition factions/SNA continued carrying out arbitrary arrests/detentions and kidnappings in August 2024, including of women. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, we documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, we documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians accused of working with the SDF, with these arrests being concentrated in some of the villages which are administratively part of Afrin city in Aleppo governorate. We also recorded arrests/detentions by SNA personnel of civilians returning to their houses in SNA-held areas, with these arrests being concentrated in Afrin city. In addition, the report recorded arrests targeting media workers who have been arrested without any clear charges being brought against them. Most of these arrests were concentrated in eastern rural Aleppo governorate. Furthermore, we documented arrests targeting a number of individuals who were travelling from regime-held areas to the Syrian-Turkish borders to cross irregularly into Türkiye. These arrests were concentrated in Afrin city.

On the subject of releases, the report documents the release of 19 individuals by Syrian regime forces, including three children and one woman. One of the releases was in connection with the amnesty decree promulgated by the Syrian regime on April 30, 2022 (Decree No. 7 of 2022). The detainee in question was released from the government complex in Daraa city. In Damascus governorate, we documented the regime’s release of one individual originally from Daraa governorate. The detainee in question was released after serving the full term of their arbitrary sentence. As such, that release was not related to any of the amnesty decrees that have been promulgated to date, with the detainee having been imprisoned for about three years in regime detention centers. The report also documented the release of 17 individuals, including three children and one woman, all of whom had been held for periods ranging from a few days to a few months without trial and without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Rural Damascus, Aleppo, and Daraa, with the majority having spent the duration of their detention in regime security branches.

As the report further reveals, 24 individuals, including one child, were released from SDF detention centers. Fourteen of these, including one child, were released after being detained for periods ranging from a few days to four months. Most of those released came originally from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, Hasaka, and Aleppo. Meanwhile, the SDF released 10 individuals in connection with Amnesty Act No. 10 of 2024, promulgated by the group on July 17, 2024, which pardons crimes committed by Syrian nationals prior to that date. Those released had been detained for periods ranging from three months to one year, with most of them hailing originally from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour and Hasaka.

The report also documents HTS’ release of 11 individuals from its detention centers in Idlib governorate, with the released detainees having been detained for periods ranging from a few days to one year, without any clear charges being brought against them. Elsewhere, all armed opposition factions/SNA released 13 individuals, including two children and three women, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to a few months without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most were released only after their families had been extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

As the report further notes, SNHR’s data is classified as a reputable principal source of information by many UN bodies, being used in numerous statements and resolutions. The most recent of these was a draft resolution on the human rights situation in Syria (A/C.3/78/L.43), passed by a vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, which condemned the Syrian regime’s continuation of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This latest resolution also acknowledged that the number of detainees in Syria continues to rise steadily, already exceeding 135,000. Relatedly, the resolution holds the regime responsible for the systematic use of enforced disappearance, which, it notes, constitutes a crime against humanity.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015, and finally in the statement on cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Approximate 68 percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report further notes that, in light of the continuing high rates of arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearance at the hands of Syrian regime forces, we see no indicator of any willingness on the Syrian regime’s part to end torture or comply with the ICJ’s order for provisional measures since its issuance on November 16, 2023. Even worse, the regime continues to imprison 136,528 arbitrarily arrested detainees/forcibly disappeared persons in its detention centers, all of whom are still being subjected to torture, which further confirms that the Syrian regime explicitly continues to contravene the Convention against Torture, which the regime ratified in 2004, and continues to fail to comply with the Convention.

The report additionally notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they too have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the UN Security Council to follow through with the implementation of UN Security Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN must form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 112,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and that families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest monthly report released today that no fewer than 209 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented in July 2024, with those detained including 14 children and three women. The group also noted that the Syrian regime has arrested 17 refugees who were forcibly deported from Lebanon.

The 21-page report notes that, given the staggering rates of continuing arbitrary arrests, the number of Syrian citizens classified as missing has skyrocketed, so much so that this can be called a phenomenon in itself. Indeed, Syria is now one of the worst countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of ‘disappeared’ citizens. The report adds that the Syrian regime surpasses many of the world’s other authoritarian regimes by virtue of having absolute hegemony over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The regime has wielded this hegemony to promulgate a multitude of laws and decrees that violate international human rights law, as well as the principles pf law and the parameters of arrests and interrogation established in domestic legislation and the current Constitution of 2012. A part of this process, the report stresses, is legitimizing the crime of torture. Syrian law contains several texts that outlaw torture, including Article 53 of the current Syrian constitution which bans arbitrary arrest and torture and Article 391 of the Public Penal Code, which provides that anyone who uses coercion during interrogation shall receive a timed prison sentence ranging from three months to three years, while torture is wholly prohibited. Despite these texts, however, other legal texts, including Law No. 16 of 2022 on Criminalizing Torture, explicitly contradict the aforementioned legal articles, and legitimize impunity for torturers.

The report summarizes the arbitrary arrests/detentions and the releases of detainees from various detention centers documented as having been carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in July 2024. The report does not, however, include abductions carried out by unidentified parties. Another exception made by SNHR is of individuals detained for committing criminal offenses, such as murder, theft, narcotics-related crimes, and other crimes that have no political nature or are unrelated to the armed conflict, dissident activism, or freedom of opinion and expression. The report also touches upon the laws and decrees promulgated by the parties to the conflict in relation to issues of arrest and enforced disappearance in the period covered. In much of its reportage, the report incorporates a descriptive and analytic methodology.

The report documents no fewer than 209 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in July 2024, with those detained including 14 children and three women (adult females). Of these, 157 have subsequently been classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 106 of the 209 cases, including of one child and two women, while Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for 43 cases, including of 13 children. Additionally, the report records 32 arbitrary arrests/detentions at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), while all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) were responsible for 28 arbitrary arrests/detentions.

The report also shows the distribution of July’s cases across Syria’s governorates. Analysis of the data shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of arbitrary arrests/detentions, followed by Rural Damascus governorate, then in descending order, Idlib, Homs, Deir Ez-Zour and Damascus, and then Hasaka. The report also compares the number of arbitrary arrests/detentions carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria with the numbers of releases of detainees from the various forces’ detention centers documented in July 2024. In this regard, the report stresses that the number of arbitrary arrests far surpasses the number of releases from detention centers, with the number of releases equaling approximately 30 percent of all the detentions documented; this confirms again that at least two or three times as many people are detained as are released, primarily by the Syrian regime, which indicates that these arrest and detention practices are standard policy in comparison to the extremely limited numbers of people released by all parties to the conflict, but mainly from regime detention centers.

The report further notes that Syrian regime forces carried out more arrests/detentions of refugees who had been forcibly repatriated from Lebanon. These arrests, which took place at the al-Masna Border Crossing on the Syrian-Lebanese border, were carried out after the Lebanese army had carried out raid and arrest campaigns targeting Syrian refugees in Lebanon who were then transferred to the border for deportation. Most of those arrested at the border by Syrian regime forces were taken to security and military detention centers in the governorates of Homs and Damascus.

Additionally, regime forces carried out widespread arrests/detentions of civilians by regime personnel in the governorates of Rural Damascus and Hama on the pretext of the detainees failing to join the regime’s military or reserve forces as part of its mandatory military service policy. These arrests were carried out during raids or mass arrests at checkpoints, and even targeted individuals who had previously agreed to settle their security situation with the regime in the areas that saw settlement agreements. Furthermore, the report documents arrests/detentions by regime forces of a number of individuals in Syria who were heading towards the Syrian-Lebanese borders to cross irregularly into Lebanon. These arrests were concentrated in Homs governorate. In addition, the report recorded arrests/detentions carried out by the Syrian regime’s Fourth Division targeting citizens at checkpoints who were trying to enter al-Hajar al-Aswad subdistrict to check on their homes, from which they had been displaced at an earlier date. There were also arrests/detentions carried out by security forces at the regime’s various Immigration and Passport Departments, as well as centers that issue non-conviction documents (background screening certification documents confirming individuals have no criminal convictions), in regime-held governorates. These arrests targeted civilians who were trying to obtain travel documents to leave the country.

On a related note, the report stresses that, through these arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances carried out in July, the Syrian regime continues to violate the orders of the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued on November 16, 2023, on requesting provisional measures in the case brought by Canada and the Netherlands against the Syrian regime on the application of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Meanwhile, the report notes, the SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in July 2024. In pursuit of these policies, SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led Coalition helicopters. We also documented arrests/detentions of civilians over accusations of working with the SNA. Moreover, we documented more arrests/detention of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF military training and recruitment camps, which are concentrated in SDF-controlled areas of Aleppo governorate. Additionally, we documented a number of arrests targeting individuals accused of being affiliated with the Arab tribes’ forces. Those arrests were concentrated in Deir Ez-Zour governorate.

The SDF also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training, with these children being sent to military training camps; the parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, HTS detained more civilians in July 2024. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate and some areas of rural Aleppo governorate under the group’s control, targeted media activists, political activists, and local dignitaries. Most of these arrests were carried out in connection with the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely and arbitrarily carried out in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. The report also documents arrests/detentions mostly carried out as part of raids and mass arrests, or at checkpoints in Idlib governorate that targeted individuals over their participation in the recent anti-HTS protests in the governorate. Most of these arrests were concentrated in Binnesh city in Idlib governorate.

Furthermore, the report continues, all armed opposition factions/SNA continued carrying out arbitrary arrests/detentions and kidnappings in July 2024, including of women. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, the report documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, the report documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF, with these arrests being concentrated in some of the villages which are administratively part of Afrin city in Aleppo governorate. The report also recorded arrests/detentions of civilians by the SNA’s ‘al-Sultan Squad’ in retaliation for those people demanding the return of their homes which had been seized by al-Sultan Squad at an earlier date. Those arrests were concentrated in Afrin city. Additionally, the report documented arrests of IDPs returning to their houses in SNA-controlled areas. Those arrests were also concentrated in Afrin city. There were also arrests involving a number of individuals who were travelling from regime-held areas to the Syrian-Turkish borders to cross irregularly into Türkiye. These arrests were concentrated in Afrin city.

On the subject of releases, the report documents the release of 23 detainees by Syrian regime forces, including the release of two detainees in connection with the amnesty decree promulgated by the Syrian regime on April 30, 2022 (Decree No. 7 of 2022). Also, in Damascus governorate, the report documents the regime’s release of two individuals originally from Daraa governorate. These detainees were released after serving the full term of their arbitrary sentences of about five years. Additionally, the report documents the release of 19 individuals who had been held without trial for a few days. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Rural Damascus, Aleppo, and Daraa, and most had spent the duration of their detention in regime security branches.

As the report further reveals, 257 people, including two children, were released in July from SDF detention centers. The SDF released 14 individuals, including two children, from its detention centers after holding them for periods ranging from a few days to three months. Most of those released came originally from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, Hasaka, and Aleppo. The majority of these releases, however, came in in connection with Amnesty Act No. 10 of 2024, promulgated by the group on July 17, 2024, which pardons crimes committed by Syrian nationals prior to July 17, 2024. The SDF released 243 individuals who had been detained for periods ranging from three months to seven years, with most of them hailing originally from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, Hasaka, Raqqa, and Aleppo.

The report also documents HTS’ release of 26 individuals from its detention centers in Idlib governorate, with the released detainees having been detained for periods ranging from a few days to three years, without any clear charges being brought against them. Elsewhere, all armed opposition factions/SNA released 12 individuals, including one woman, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to a few months without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most were released only after their families had been extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

As the report further notes, SNHR’s data is classified as a reputable principal source of information by many UN bodies, being used in numerous statements and resolutions. The most recent of these was a draft resolution on the human rights situation in Syria (A/C.3/78/L.43), passed by a vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, which condemned the Syrian regime’s continuation of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This latest resolution also acknowledged that the number of detainees in Syria continues to rise steadily, already exceeding 135,000. Relatedly, the resolution holds the regime responsible for the systematic use of enforced disappearance, which, it notes, constitutes a crime against humanity.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015, and finally in the statement on cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Approximate 68 percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report further notes that, in light of the continuing high rates of arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearance at the hands of Syrian regime forces, we see no indicator of any willingness on the Syrian regime’s part to end torture or comply with the ICJ’s order for provisional measures since its issuance on November 16, 2023. Even worse, the regime continues to imprison 136,528 arbitrarily arrested detainees/forcibly disappeared persons in its detention centers, all of whom are still being subjected to torture, which further confirms that the Syrian regime explicitly continues to contravene the Convention against Torture, which the regime ratified in 2004, and continues to fail to comply with the Convention.

The report additionally notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the UN Security Council to follow through with the implementation of UN Security Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN must form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 112,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and that families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest monthly report released today that no fewer than 1,236 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented in the first half of 2024, with those detained including 56 children and 30 women. Meanwhile, 217 of the 1,236 cases documented in the first half of 2024, were documented in June. The report also notes that at least 126 forcibly deported refugees have been arrested since the start of 2024.

The 27-page report reveals that, as SNHR’s database confirms, about 73 percent of all arbitrary detentions carried out in Syria subsequently turn into enforced disappearances, with the Syrian regime being responsible for about 88 percent of all the arbitrary arrests documented. Naturally, given these staggering rates of arbitrary arrest, the number of Syrian citizens classified as missing has skyrocketed, so much so that this can be called a phenomenon in itself. Indeed, Syria is one of the worst countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of ‘disappeared’ citizens.

The report also stresses that the Syrian regime surpasses many of the world’s other authoritarian regimes by virtue of having absolute hegemony over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The regime has wielded this hegemony to pass a multitude of laws and decrees that violate international human rights law, as well as the principles of law and the parameters of arrests and interrogation established in domestic legislation and by Syria’s current Constitution, most recently amended in 2012. Moreover, the Syrian regime has legitimized the crime of torture, disregarding the existence of several texts in Syrian law that explicitly outlaw torture, including Article 53 of the current Syrian constitution which bans arbitrary arrest and torture and Article 391 of the Public Penal Code, which provides that anyone who uses coercion during interrogation shall receive a timed prison sentence ranging from three months to three years, while torture is wholly prohibited. Despite these proscriptions, however, other quasi-legal texts have been introduced, including Law No. 16 of 2022 on Criminalizing Torture, which explicitly contradict the aforementioned legal articles, and legitimize impunity.

The report summarizes the arbitrary arrests/detentions and the releases of detainees from various detention centers documented as having been carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in the first half of 2024 up to, and including June. The report does not, however, include abductions carried out by unidentified parties. Another exception made by SNHR is of individuals detained for committing criminal offenses, such as murder, theft, narcotics-related crimes, and other crimes that have no political nature or are unrelated to the armed conflict, dissident activism, or freedom of opinion and expression. The report also touches upon the laws and decrees promulgated by the parties to the conflict in relation to issues of arrest and enforced disappearance in the period covered. In much of its reportage, the report incorporates a descriptive and analytic methodology.

The report documents no fewer than 1,236 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in the first half of 2024, with those detained including 56 children and 30 women (adult females). Of these, 1,007 have subsequently been classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 549 of the 1,236 arrests, including of eight children and 14 women, while Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were responsible for 121. Additionally, all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) were responsible for 219 arrests, including of two children and nine women, while Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for 347, including of 46 children and seven women.

The report also shows the distribution of these cases across Syria’s governorates. Analysis of the data shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of arrests in the first half of 2024, followed, in descending order, by Deir Ez-Zour governorate, then Rural Damascus governorate, then Idlib, Damascus, Homs, and finally Hasaka. The report also compares the number of arbitrary arrests/detentions carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria with the numbers of releases of detainees from the various forces’ detention centers documented in the first half of 2024. In this regard, the report stresses that the number of arbitrary arrests far surpasses the number of releases from detention centers, with the number of releases equaling approximately 30 percent of all the detentions documented; this confirms again that at least two or three times as many people are detained as are released, primarily by the Syrian regime, which indicates that these arrest and detention practices are standard policy in comparison to the extremely limited numbers of people released by all parties to the conflict, but mainly by regime forces. On the subject of releases, the report records at least 398 releases from the various detention centers in Syria in the first half of 2024, including of 13 children and 11 women.

The report documents no fewer than 217 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in June 2024, with those detained including eight children and five women (adult female). Of these, 177 have subsequently been classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 93 of the 217 arrests, including of two children and three women, while HTS was responsible for 38. Additionally, all armed opposition factions/SNA were responsible for 34 arrests, while the SDF was responsible for 52, including of six children and two women. Meanwhile, the report recorded 81 releases from the various detention centers in Syria in June 2024, including of three children and three women.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime intensified its arrest operations in the first half of 2024, with these arrests taking place in various contexts, ahead of the promulgation of an anticipated amnesty decree. Another indicator is the noticeable increase in arrest rates which coincided with a noticeable drop in prisoner releases or transfers. Meanwhile, regime courts and detention centers are compiling lists of sentenced detainees, detainees on trial, and detainees who have yet to appear before a court. Usually, the regime follows these intensified arrests with releases in order to create a false perception among the public and the international community that it is enacting positive change through the promulgation of the amnesty decree.

The report also documents more arrests/detentions of refugees who had been forcibly repatriated from Lebanon. These arrests, which took place at the al-Masna Border Crossing on the Syrian-Lebanese border, were carried out after the Lebanese army had carried out raid and arrest campaigns targeting Syrian refugees in Lebanon who were then deported to the border. Most of those arrested at the border by Syrian regime forces were taken to regime security and military detention centers in the governorates of Homs and Damascus. Since the start of 2024, SNHR has documented that at least 126 of the refugees forcibly deported from Lebanon, including four children and three women, have been arrested by regime forces. Furthermore, the report documents arrests/detentions targeting returning “refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs)” as they were trying to go back to their original areas which are now under the control of regime forces. Those arrests targeted refugees returning from Lebanon, and from Jordan via the Nasib Border Crossing in southern Daraa, as well as via the Damascus International Airport in Damascus city.

There were also arrests/detentions targeting a number of civilians simply for voicing their demands, criticizing the worsening living situation in regime areas, or supporting the popular movement in Suwayda governorate, on social media. Those arrested included university students, and pro-regime media figures. These individuals face a variety of charges on the grounds of the Counter-Cybercrime Law. These arrests were concentrated in the governorates of Latakia and Tartus.

Additionally, the report documents widespread arrests/detentions of civilians by regime personnel in the governorates of Rural Damascus, Hama, Homs, and Daraa on the pretext of the detainees failing to join the regime’s military or reserve forces as part of the regime’s mandatory military service policy. These arrests were carried out during raids or mass arrests at checkpoints, and even targeted individuals who had previously agreed to settle their security situation with the regime in the areas that saw settlement agreements.

The report also records arrests/detentions carried out for the purpose of extorting money targeting civilians who had received external money transfers on the pretext of their supposedly dealing in a foreign currency. While these arrests took place in various Syrian governorates, they were particularly concentrated in Rural Damascus, Damascus, Hama and Aleppo.

In addition, the report documents arrests by regime security authorities targeting civilians visiting immigration and passports departments to obtain travel documents. These arrests were concentrated in the governorates of Damascus, Hama, and Homs. Another pattern documented by the report was seen in arrests/detentions carried out by members of pro-regime militias/informal regime forces targeting passengers and staff on the public buses that transport passengers between regime-held areas and SDF-controlled areas in Aleppo city, as well as widespread, random arrests/detentions targeting citizens, including university students, in the governorates of Damascus, Rural Damascus, and Daraa, which the report believes were the result of ill-intentioned and malicious security reports.

On a related note, the report stresses that, through these arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances carried, the Syrian regime continues to violate the orders of the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued in November 2023, on requesting provisional measures in the case brought by Canada and the Netherlands against the Syrian regime on the application of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Meanwhile, the report notes, the SDF also continued to enforce the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance throughout the first half of 2024. In pursuit of these policies, SDF personnel have continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led Coalition helicopters. Additionally, the report documents arrests/detentions of civilians over accusations of working with the SNA. Some of the arrests/detentions carried out were accompanied or followed by severe beatings of the civilians detained. Moreover, the report documents more arrests/detention of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF military training and recruitment camps, which are concentrated in SDF-controlled areas of Aleppo governorate. Furthermore, the report documents arrests/detentions, primarily in Hasaka governorate, targeting members of Kurdish parties over voicing views critical of the corruption and poor living conditions in SDF-controlled areas.

Meanwhile, the report documented arrests of individuals over their alleged affiliation with Arab tribes involved in clashes with the SDF, with these arrests being concentrated in Deir Ez-Zour governorate.

Meanwhile, the SDF also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training, with these children being sent to military training camps; the parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, HTS detained more civilians in the first half of 2024. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate and some areas of rural Aleppo governorate under the group’s control, targeted media activists, political activists, and local dignitaries. Most of these arrests were carried out in connection with the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely arbitrarily carried out in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. The group also arrested a number of individuals over their alleged affiliation with the extremist Tahrir Party. Most of these arrests took place in the form of raids and mass arrest, as well as at checkpoints in Idlib governorate. Moreover, the HTS’ judiciary summoned a number of media activists and workers with humanitarian groups for interrogation and to warn them against violating the policies enforced by HTS in the course of their work.

Furthermore, armed opposition factions/SNA continued carrying out arbitrary arrests/detentions and kidnappings in the first half of 2024, including of women. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, the report documents detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without any judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, we documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF, with these arrests being concentrated in some of the villages which are administratively part of Afrin city in Aleppo governorate.

Additionally, the report documents arrests/detentions by the SNA’s Military Police that targeted refugees and IDPs returning to their homes after being displaced when the SNA took over Afrin in 2018. These arrests/detentions were concentrated in a number of villages that are administratively a part of Afrin city.

The report also documents arrests/detentions of civilians by the SNA’s ‘al-Hamza Squad’ in retaliation for the detainees holding Nowruz celebrations. These arrests were concentrated in Atman village, administratively a part of Afrin city. A number of individuals were also arrested for trying to travel from regime-held areas to the Syrian-Turkish border in attempts to irregularly cross into Türkiye. These arrests were concentrated in Afrin city.

Moreover, the report documented arrests/detentions targeting civilians in response to their demanding the return of their homes which had been seized earlier by the SNA. Those arrests were concentrated in Afrin city.

On the subject of releases, the report documents the release of 107 detainees, including three children and five women, by Syrian regime forces in the first half of 2024. The report also documents the release of seven detainees in connection with the amnesty decree promulgated by the Syrian regime on April 30, 2022 (Decree No. 7 of 2022). The detainees in question were released from the government complex in Daraa city and Adra Central Prison in Rural Damascus governorate. It is worth noting that the application of Amnesty Decree 7/2022 is, to this day, evidently conditional on the end of the prison sentences of those detainees who were partially included in this amnesty. In Damascus governorate, the report documents the regime’s release of 24 individuals originally from the governorates of Aleppo, Hama, Daraa and Damascus. These detainees were released after serving the full term of their arbitrary sentences. As such, these releases were not related to any of the amnesty decrees that have been promulgated to date, with these detainees having been imprisoned for periods ranging from one to seven years. The report also documents the release of 76 individuals, including three children and five women, who were held for a few days without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Rural Damascus, Aleppo, and Daraa, and most had spent the duration of their detention in regime security branches.

As the report further reveals, 113 people, including eight children, were released in the first half of 2024 from SDF detention centers, where they had been held for various periods ranging from a few days to six years, with most of these detainees originating from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, Aleppo, Hasaka, and Raqqa. Most of these releases were the result of meditation by tribal intermediaries or came after the detainees had completed their sentences.

Meanwhile, the report documents HTS’ release of 84 individuals from its detention centers in Idlib governorate in the first half of 2024, with the released detainees having been detained for periods ranging from a few days to three years, without any clear charges being brought against them. On the other hand, all armed opposition factions/SNA released 94 individuals, including two children and six women, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to one-and-a-half years without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most were released only after their families had been extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

As the report further notes, SNHR’s data is classified as a reputable principal source of information by many UN bodies, being used in numerous statements and resolutions. The most recent of these was a draft resolution on the human rights situation in Syria (A/C.3/78/L.43), passed by a vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, which condemned the Syrian regime’s continuation of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This latest resolution also acknowledged that the number of detainees in Syria continues to rise steadily, already exceeding 135,000. Relatedly, the resolution holds the regime responsible for the systematic use of enforced disappearance, which, it notes, constitutes a crime against humanity.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015, and finally in the statement on cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Approximate 68 percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report further notes that, in light of the continuing high rates of arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearance at the hands of Syrian regime forces, we see no indicator of any willingness on the Syrian regime’s part to end torture or comply with the ICJ’s order for provisional measures since its issuance on November 16, 2023. Even worse, the regime continues to imprison 135,638 arbitrarily arrested detainees/forcibly disappeared persons in its detention centers, all of whom are still being subjected to torture, which further confirms that the Syrian regime explicitly continues to contravene the Convention against Torture, which the regime ratified in 2004, and continues to fail to comply with the Convention.

The report additionally notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the UN Security Council to follow through with the implementation of Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report also stresses that the UN must form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 102,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and that the families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest monthly report released today that no fewer than 228 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented in May 2024, with those detained including 13 children and four women. The group also noted that the Syrian regime has arrested 23 refugees returning from Lebanon and Jordan.

The 21-page report notes that, given the staggering rates of continuing arbitrary arrests, the number of Syrian citizens classified as missing has skyrocketed, so much so that this can be called a phenomenon in itself. Indeed, Syria is now one of the worst countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of ‘disappeared’ citizens. The report adds that the Syrian regime surpasses many of the world’s other authoritarian regimes by virtue of having absolute hegemony over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The regime has wielded this hegemony to promulgate a multitude of laws and decrees that violate international human rights law, as well as the principles pf law and the parameters of arrests and interrogation established in domestic legislation and the current Constitution of 2012. A part of this process, the report stresses, is legitimizing the crime of torture. Syrian law contains several texts that outlaw torture, including Article 53 of the current Syrian constitution which bans arbitrary arrest and torture and Article 391 of the Public Penal Code, which provides that anyone who uses coercion during interrogation shall receive a timed prison sentence ranging from three months to three years, while torture is wholly prohibited. Despite these texts, however, other legal texts, including Law No. 16 of 2022 on Criminalizing Torture, explicitly contradict the aforementioned legal articles, and legitimize impunity for torturers.

The report summarizes the arbitrary arrests/detentions and the releases of detainees from various detention centers documented as having been carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in May 2024. The report does not, however, include abductions carried out by unidentified parties. Another exception made by SNHR is of individuals detained for committing criminal offenses, such as murder, theft, narcotics-related crimes, and other crimes that have no political nature or are unrelated to the armed conflict, dissident activism, or freedom of opinion and expression. The report also touches upon the laws and decrees promulgated by the parties to the conflict in relation to issues of arrest and enforced disappearance in the period covered. In much of its reportage, the report incorporates a descriptive and analytic methodology.

The report documents no fewer than 228 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in May 2024, with those detained including 13 children and four women (adult females). Of these, 189 have subsequently been classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 102 of the 228 cases, including of two children and three women, while Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for 49 cases, including of 11 children. Additionally, the report records 41 arbitrary arrests/detentions at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), while all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) were responsible for 36 arbitrary arrests/detentions, including of two children and two women.

The report also shows the distribution of May’s cases across Syria’s governorates. Analysis of the data shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of arbitrary arrests/detentions documented in May, followed by the governorate of Idlib, then in descending order Rural Damascus, Deir E-Zour Homs, Damascus and Daraa, and finally Hasaka. The report also compares the number of arbitrary arrests/detentions carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria with the numbers of releases of detainees from the various forces’ detention centers documented in May 2024. In this regard, the report stresses that the number of arbitrary arrests far surpasses the number of releases from detention centers, with the number of releases equaling approximately 30 percent of all the detentions documented; this confirms again that at least two or three times as many people are detained as are released, primarily by the Syrian regime, which indicates that these arrest and detention practices are standard policy in comparison to the extremely limited numbers of people released by all parties to the conflict, but mainly from regime detention centers.

The report further notes that Syrian regime forces carried out arrests/detentions of refugees who had been forcibly repatriated from Lebanon. This took place after the Lebanese army had carried out raid and arrest campaigns targeting Syrian refugees in Lebanon who were then deported to the border. Most of those arrested at the border by Syrian regime forces were taken to security and military detention centers in the two governorates of Homs and Damascus.

Moreover, the report records widespread arrests/detentions of civilians by regime personnel in the governorates of Rural Damascus, Aleppo, and Daraa on the pretext of the detainees failing to join the regime’s military or reserve forces as part of the regime’s mandatory military service policy. These arrests were carried out during raids or mass arrests at checkpoints, and even targeted individuals who had previously agreed to settle their security situation with the regime in the areas that saw settlement agreements. Also, the report recorded arrests/detentions targeting returning refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) as they attempted to go back to their original areas which are currently under the control of regime forces. Those arrests targeted refugees returning from Lebanon, and from Jordan via the Nasib Border Crossing in southern Daraa. Furthermore, the report recorded arrests/detentions at regime checkpoints in Aleppo governorate, targeting citizens travelling from their places of residence in SDF-held areas to regime areas in Aleppo city. There were also widespread, random arrests/detentions targeting citizens, including university students, in the governorates of Damascus, Rural Damascus, and Daraa. Most of these arrests were carried out as part of mass raid and arrest campaigns, as well as at checkpoints. We believe these arrests were the result of ill-intentioned and malicious security reports.

On a related note, the report stresses that, through these arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances carried out in May, the Syrian regime continues to violate the orders of the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued on November 16, 2023, on requesting provisional measures in the case brought by Canada and the Netherlands against the Syrian regime on the application of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Meanwhile, the report notes, the SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in May 2024. In pursuit of these policies, SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led Coalition helicopters. We also documented arrests/detentions of civilians over accusations of working with the SNA. Moreover, we documented arrests/detentions of members of the Khnaf Folklore Troupe, including children, as well as members of the Yekiti Party of Kurdistan – Syria (PYKS), primarily in Hasaka governorate. The report also recorded more arrests/detention of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF military training and recruitment camps, which are concentrated in SDF-controlled areas of Aleppo governorate. Moreover, the report documented a number of arrests targeting individuals accused of being affiliated with the Arab tribes’ forces. Those arrests were concentrated in Deir Ez-Zour governorate. Additionally, the SDF also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training, sending them to military training camps; the parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, HTS detained more civilians in May 2024. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate and some areas of rural Aleppo governorate under the group’s control, targeted media activists, political activists, and local dignitaries. Most of these arrests were carried out in connection with the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely and arbitrarily carried out in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. The report also documented arrests/detentions mostly carried out as part of raids and mass arrests, or at checkpoints in Idlib governorate that targeted individuals over their participation in the recent anti-HTS protests in the governorate.

Furthermore, armed opposition factions/SNA continued carrying out arbitrary arrests/detentions and kidnappings in May 2024, including of women. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, we documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Also, the report documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF, with these arrests being concentrated in some of the villages which are administratively part of Afrin city in Aleppo governorate. Moreover, the report recorded arrests/detentions of civilians by the SNA’s ‘al-Sultan Squad’ in retaliation for those people demanding the return of their homes which had been seized by al-Sultan Squad at an earlier date. Those arrests were concentrated in Afrin city. Additionally, we documented the arrests of a number of refugees and IDPs returning to their houses in SNA-controlled areas. Those arrests were also concentrated in Afrin city.

On the subject of releases, the report documents the release of 17 detainees by Syrian regime forces, including the release of one detainee in connection with the amnesty decree promulgated by the Syrian regime on April 30, 2022 (Decree No. 7 of 2022). Also, in Damascus governorate, the report documented the regime’s release of three individuals originally from the governorates of Aleppo and Damascus. These detainees were released after serving the full term of their arbitrary sentences, which ranged from one year to four years. Additionally, the report documented the release of 13 individuals who had been held without trial for a few days. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Rural Damascus, Aleppo, and Daraa, and most had spent the duration of their detention in regime security branches.

As the report further reveals, 19 people, including three children, were released in May from SDF detention centers, where they had been held for various periods ranging from a few days to few months, with most of these detainees originating from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour and Aleppo. Most of these releases were the result of meditation by tribal intermediaries or came after the detainees had completed their sentences. Meanwhile, the report documents the HTS’ release of 12 individuals from its detention centers in Idlib governorate, with the released detainees having been detained for periods ranging from a few days to few months, without any clear charges being brought against them. Meanwhile, all armed opposition factions/SNA released nine individuals, including one child, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to four months without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most were released only after their families had been extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

As the report further notes, SNHR’s data is classified as a reputable principal source of information by many UN bodies, being used in numerous statements and resolutions. The most recent of these was a draft resolution on the human rights situation in Syria (A/C.3/78/L.43), passed by a vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, which condemned the Syrian regime’s continuation of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This latest resolution also acknowledged that the number of detainees in Syria continues to rise steadily, already exceeding 135,000. Relatedly, the resolution holds the regime responsible for the systematic use of enforced disappearance, which, it notes, constitutes a crime against humanity.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015, and finally in the statement on cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Approximate 68 percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report further notes that, in light of the continuing high rates of arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearance at the hands of Syrian regime forces, we see no indicator of any willingness on the Syrian regime’s part to end torture or comply with the ICJ’s order for provisional measures since its issuance on November 16, 2023. Even worse, the regime continues to imprison 135,638 arbitrarily arrested detainees/forcibly disappeared persons in its detention centers, all of whom are still being subjected to torture, which further confirms that the Syrian regime explicitly continues to contravene the Convention against Torture, which the regime ratified in 2004, and continues to fail to comply with the Convention.

The report additionally notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the UN Security Council to follow through with the implementation of Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN must form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 102,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest monthly report released today that no fewer than 212 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented in April 2024, with those detained including 12 children and seven women. The group also noted that the Syrian regime has been arresting refugees who have been forcibly repatriated from Lebanon.

The 21-page report notes that, given the staggering rates of continuing arbitrary arrests, the number of Syrian citizens classified as missing has skyrocketed, so much so that this can be called a phenomenon in itself. Indeed, Syria is one of the worst countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of ‘disappeared’ citizens. The report adds that the Syrian regime surpasses many of the world’s other authoritarian regimes by virtue of having absolute hegemony over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The regime has wielded this hegemony to promulgate a multitude of laws and decrees that violate international human rights law, as well as the principles pf law and the parameters of arrests and interrogation established in domestic legislation and the current Constitution of 2012. A part of this process, the report stresses, is legitimizing the crime of torture. There are several texts in Syrian law that outlaw torture, including Article 53 of the current Syrian constitution which bans arbitrary arrest and torture and Article 391 of the Public Penal Code, which provides that anyone who uses coercion during interrogation shall receive a timed prison sentence ranging from three months to three years, while torture is wholly prohibited. Despite these texts, however, other legal texts, including Law No. 16 of 2022 on Criminalizing Torture, explicitly contradict the aforementioned legal articles, and legitimize impunity for torturers.

The report summarizes the arbitrary arrests/detentions and the releases of detainees from various detention centers documented as having been carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in April 2024. The report does not, however, include abductions carried out by unidentified parties. Another exception made by SNHR is of individuals detained for committing criminal offenses, such as murder, theft, narcotics-related crimes, and other crimes that have no political nature or are unrelated to the armed conflict, dissident activism, or freedom of opinion and expression. The report also touches upon the laws and decrees promulgated by the parties to the conflict in relation to issues of arrest and enforced disappearance in the period covered. In much of the reportage, the report incorporates a descriptive and analytic methodology.

The report documents no fewer than 212 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in April 2024, with those detained including 12 children and seven women (adult female). Of these, 174 have subsequently been classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 98 of the 212 cases, including of two women, while Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for 62 cases, including of nine children and three women. Additionally, the report records 11 arbitrary arrests/detentions at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), while all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) were responsible for 41 arbitrary arrests/detentions, including of two children and two women.

The report also shows the distribution of April’s cases across Syria’s governorates. Analysis of the data shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions documented in April, followed by the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, then Rural Damascus, Homs, Damascus, Idlib and Hasaka, and finally Daraa. The report also compares the number of arbitrary arrests/detentions carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria with releases from the various forces’ detention centers documented in April 2024. In this regard, the report stresses that the number of arbitrary arrests far surpasses the number of releases from detention centers, with the number of releases equaling approximately 30 percent of all the detentions documented; this confirms again that at least two or three times as many people are detained as are released, primarily by the Syrian regime, which indicates that these arrest and detention practices are standard policy in comparison to the extremely limited numbers of people released by all parties to the conflict, but mainly from regime detention centers.

The report further notes that Syrian regime forces carried out arrests/detentions of refugees who had been forcibly repatriated from Lebanon. This took place after the Lebanese army had carried out raid and arrest campaigns targeting Syrian refugees in Lebanon who were then deported to the border. Most of those arrested at the border by Syrian regime forces were taken to security and military detention centers in the two governorates of Homs and Damascus.

Moreover, the repot records widespread arrests/detentions of civilians by regime personnel in the governorates of Rural Damascus, Damascus, and Daraa on the pretext of the detainees failing to join the regime’s military or reserve forces as part of the mandatory military service policy. These arrests were carried out during raids or mass arrests at checkpoints, and even targeted individuals who had previously agreed to settle their security situation with the regime in the areas that saw settlement agreements. Also, the report documents multiple arrests/detentions of people on their way to the Syrian-Lebanese border with the aim of crossing irregularly into Lebanon. Most of these arrests were concentrated primarily in Homs governorate. Furthermore, there were widespread, random arrests/detentions by regime forces targeting citizens in the governorates of Damascus, Hama, and Aleppo. Most of these arrests were carried out as part of mass raid and arrest campaigns, as well as at checkpoints, which the report believes were the result of ill-intentioned and malicious security reports. On a related note, the report stresses that, through these arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances carried out in April, the Syrian regime continues to violate the order of the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued on November 16, 2023, on requesting provisional measures in the case brought by Canada and the Netherlands against the Syrian regime on the application of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Meanwhile, the report notes, the SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in April. In pursuit of these policies, SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led Coalition helicopters. The report also documents the SDF carrying out arrests/detentions of civilians over accusations of working with the SNA. Moreover, the report documented a number of SDF arrests targeting women, in order to pressurize their husbands into surrendering themselves. These arrests were concentrated in Manbij city in rural Aleppo governorate. The SDF also carried out more arrests/detention of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF military training and recruitment camps, which are concentrated in SDF-controlled areas of Aleppo governorate. Meanwhile, the SDF has also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training, sending them to military training camps; the parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, HTS detained more civilians in April 2024. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate and some areas of rural Aleppo governorate under the group’s control, targeted media activists, political activists, and local dignitaries. Most of these arrests were carried out in connection with the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely and arbitrarily carried out in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. We also documented arrests/detentions mostly carried out as part of raids and mass arrests, or at checkpoints in Idlib governorate that targeted individuals over their participation in the recent anti-HTS protests in the governorate.

Furthermore, all armed opposition factions/SNA continued carrying out arbitrary arrests/detentions and kidnappings in April 2024, including of women. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, the report documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, the report documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF, with these arrests being concentrated in some of the villages which are administratively a part of Afrin city in Aleppo governorate. The report also recorded arrests/detentions of civilians by the SNA’s ‘al-Hamza Squad’ in retaliation for the detainees demanding the return of their homes which had been seized by al-Hamza Squad at an earlier date. Those arrests were concentrated in Afrin city. Additionally, the report documented the arrests of a number of individuals for trying to travel from regime-held areas to the Syrian-Turkish border in attempts to irregularly cross into Türkiye. These arrests were also concentrated in Afrin city.

On the subject of releases, the report documents the release of one detainee in connection with the amnesty decree promulgated by the Syrian regime on April 30, 2022 (Decree No. 7 of 2022). The detainee in question was released from the government complex in Daraa city. Also, in Damascus governorate, the report documented the regime’s release of four individuals originally from the governorates of Hama and Damascus. These detainees were released after serving the full term of their arbitrary sentences. As such, these releases were not related to any of the amnesty decrees that have been promulgated to date, with these detainees having been imprisoned for periods of between one to three years. Additionally, the report documented the release of 14 individuals who had been held without trial for relatively brief periods of time, ranging from a few days to a few months, without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Homs, Suwayda, and Daraa, and most had spent the duration of their detention in regime security branches.

As the report further reveals, 24 people, including one child, were released in April from SDF detention centers, where they had been held for various periods ranging from a few days to six years, with most of these detainees originating from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, Hasaka, and Aleppo. Most of these releases were the result of meditation by tribal intermediaries or came after the detainees had completed their sentences. Meanwhile, the report documents the HTS’ release of 17 individuals from its detention centers in Idlib governorate, with the released detainees having been detained for periods ranging from a few days to three years, without any clear charges being brought against them. Meanwhile, all armed opposition factions/SNA released 16 individuals, including one child, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to six months without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most were released only after their families had been extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

As the report further notes, SNHR’s data is classified as a reputable principal source of information by many UN bodies, being used in numerous statements and resolutions. The most recent of these was a draft resolution on the human rights situation in Syria (A/C.3/78/L.43), passed by a vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, which condemned the Syrian regime’s continuation of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This latest resolution also acknowledged that the number of detainees in Syria continues to rise steadily, already exceeding 135,000. Relatedly, the resolution holds the regime responsible for the systematic use of enforced disappearance, which, it notes, constitutes a crime against humanity.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015, and finally in the statement on cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Approximate 68 percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report further notes that, in light of the continuing high rates of arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearance at the hands of Syrian regime forces, we see no indicator of any willingness on the Syrian regime’s part to end torture or comply with the ICJ’s order for provisional measures since its issuance on November 16, 2023. Even worse, the regime continues to imprison 135,638 arbitrarily arrested detainees/forcibly disappeared persons in its detention centers, all of whom are still being subjected to torture, which further confirms that the Syrian regime explicitly continues to contravene the Convention against Torture, which the regime ratified in 2004, and continues to fail to comply with the Convention.

The report additionally notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the UN Security Council to follow through with the implementation of Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN must form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 102,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

Download the full report

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest monthly report released today that no fewer than 203 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented in March 2024, with those detained including eight children and five women. The group also noted that the Syrian regime continues to violate the ICJ order.

The 21-page report notes that, given the staggering rates of continuing arbitrary arrests, the number of Syrian citizens classified as missing has skyrocketed, so much so that this can be called a phenomenon in itself. Indeed, Syria is one of the worst countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of ‘disappeared’ citizens. The report adds that the Syrian regime surpasses many of the world’s other authoritarian regimes by virtue of having absolute hegemony over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The regime has wielded this hegemony to promulgate a multitude of laws and decrees that violate international human rights law, as well as the principles pf law and the parameters of arrests and interrogation established in domestic legislation and the current Constitution of 2012. A part of this process, the report stresses, is legitimizing the crime of torture. There are several texts in Syrian law that outlaw torture, including Article 53 of the current Syrian constitution which bans arbitrary arrest and torture and Article 391 of the Public Penal Code, which provides that anyone who uses coercion during interrogation shall receive a timed prison sentence ranging from three months to three years, while torture is wholly prohibited. Despite these texts, however, other legal texts, including Law No. 16 of 2022 on Criminalizing Torture, explicitly contradict the aforementioned legal articles, and legitimize impunity for torturers.

The report summarizes the arbitrary arrests/detentions and the releases of detainees from various detention centers documented as having been carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in March 2024. The report does not, however, include abductions carried out by unidentified parties. Another exception made by SNHR is of individuals detained for committing criminal offenses, such as murder, theft, narcotics-related crimes, and other crimes that have no political nature or are unrelated to the armed conflict, dissident activism, or freedom of opinion and expression. The report also touches upon the laws and decrees promulgated by the parties to the conflict in relation to issues of arrest and enforced disappearance in the period covered. In much of the reportage, the report incorporates a descriptive and analytic methodology.

The report documents no fewer than 203 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in March 2024, with those detained including eight children and five women (adult female). Of these, 168 have subsequently been classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 91 of the 203 cases, including of two women, while Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for 64 cases, including of eight children. Additionally, the report records nine arbitrary arrests/detentions at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), while all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) were responsible for 39 arbitrary arrests/detentions, including of one woman.

The report also shows the distribution of March’s cases across Syria’s governorates. Analysis of the data shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions documented in March, followed by the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, then Rural Damascus, Damascus, Homs, Raqqa, Daraa, and finally Hasaka. The report also compares the number of arbitrary arrests/detentions carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling force sin Syria with releases from the various forces’ detention centers documented in March 2024. In this regard, the report stresses that the number of arbitrary arrests far surpasses the number of releases from detention centers, with the number of releases equaling approximately 30 percent of all the detentions documented; this confirms again that at least two or three times as many people are detained as are released, primarily by the Syrian regime, which indicates that these arrest and detention practices are standard policy in comparison to the extremely limited numbers of people released by all parties to the conflict, but mainly from regime detention centers.

The report notes that Syrian regime forces carried out widespread arrests/detentions of civilians in the governorates of Rural Damascus, Damascus. Hama, Aleppo, and Homs, on the pretext of the detainees failing to join the military or reserve forces as part of their mandatory military service. These arrests were carried out during raids or mass arrests at checkpoints, and even targeted individuals who had previously agreed to settle their security situation with the regime in the areas that saw settlement agreements. Additionally, the report records arrests by the regime’s security authorities targeting civilians who were visiting the Immigration and Passport Department’s offices to obtain travel documents. These arrests were concentrated in Damascus city. The report also documents multiple arrests/detentions of people on their way to the Syrian-Lebanese border with the aim of crossing irregularly into Lebanon. These arrests have been concentrated in Homs governorate. Moreover, the report documents arrests/detentions carried out by members of pro-regime militias/informal regime forces involving a number of workers on the pedestrian buses that transport passengers between regime-held areas and SDF-controlled areas. Those arrests were concentrated in the al-Zahra town in northern Aleppo governorate. On a related note, the report stresses that, through these arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances carried out in March, The Syrian regime continues to violate the order of the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued on November 16, 2023, on requesting provisional measures in the case brought by Canada and the Netherlands against the Syrian regime on the application of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Meanwhile, the report notes, The SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in March 2024. In doing so, SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led coalition helicopters. The report also documented arrests/detentions of civilians over accusations of working with the SNA. Moreover, the report documented arrests/detentions involving civilians over their participation in an anti-SDF demonstration in Deir Ez-Zour governorate, as well as documenting more detentions of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF military training and recruitment camps, which are concentrated in SDF-held areas of Aleppo governorate.

Meanwhile, the SDF has also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training, sending them to military training camps; the parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, HTS detained more civilians in March 2024. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate and some areas of rural Aleppo governorate under the group’s control, targeted media activists, political activists, and local dignitaries. Most of these arrests were carried out in relation to the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely carried out arbitrarily in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. We also recorded indiscriminate arrests/detentions mostly carried out as part of raids and mass arrests, or at checkpoints in Idlib governorate.

Furthermore, all armed opposition factions/SNA continued carrying out arbitrary arrests/detentions and kidnappings in March 2024, including of women. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, the report documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, the report documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF, with those arrests being concentrated in some of the villages which are administratively a part of Afrin city in Aleppo governorate. The report also recorded arrests/detentions of civilians by the SNA’s ‘al-Hamza Squad’ in retaliation for the detainees holding Nowruz celebrations. These arrests were concentrated in Atman village, administratively a part of Afrin city. Furthermore, the report recorded the arrests of a number of individuals for trying to travel from regime-held areas to the Syrian-Turkish border in attempts to irregularly cross into Türkiye. These arrests were concentrated in Afrin city.

On the subject of releases, the report documents the release of one detainee from the Government Complex in Daraa, in connection with the amnesty decree promulgated by the Syrian regime on April 30, 2022 (Decree No. 7 of 2022). In Damascus governorate, the report documents the regime’s release of three individuals originally from the governorates of Hama and Damascus, who were released after serving the full term of their arbitrary sentences. As such, these releases were not related to any of the amnesty decrees that have been promulgated to date, with these detainees having been imprisoned for periods of between one to two years. The report also documented the release of 13 individuals, including two women, who had been held without trial for brief periods of time, ranging from a few days to a few months, without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Homs, Suwayda, and Daraa, and had spent the duration of their detention in regime security branches.

As the report further reveals, 21 people were released in March from SDF detention centers where they had been held for various periods ranging from a few days to six years, with most of these detainees originating from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour and Aleppo. Most of these releases were the result of meditation by tribal intermediaries or came after the detainees had completed their sentences. HTS, meanwhile, released 18 people from its detention centers in Idlib governorate, with the released detainees having been detained for periods ranging from a few days to three years, without any clear charges being brought against them. Furthermore, In March 2024, all armed opposition factions/SNA released 12 people, including one woman, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to one year without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most were released only after their families had been extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

As the report further notes, SNHR’s data is classified as a reputable principal source of information for many UN bodies, being used in numerous statements and resolutions. The most recent of these was a draft resolution on the human rights situation in Syria (A/C.3/78/L.43), passed by a vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, which condemned the Syrian regime’s continuation of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This latest resolution also acknowledged that the number of detainees in Syria continues to rise steadily, already exceeding 135,000. Relatedly, the resolution holds the regime responsible for the systematic use of enforced disappearance, which, it noted, constitutes a crime against humanity.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015, and finally in the statement on cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Approximate 68 percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report adds that, in light of the continuing high rates of arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearance at the hands of Syrian regime forces, we see no indicator of any willingness on the Syrian regime’s part to end torture or comply with the ICJ’s order for provisional measures since its issuance on November 16, 2023. Even worse, the regime continues to imprison 135,638 arbitrarily arrested detainees/forcibly disappeared persons in its detention centers, all of whom are still being subjected to torture, which further confirms that the Syrian regime explicitly continues to contravene the Convention against Torture, which the regime ratified in 2004, and continues to fail to comply with the Convention.

The report notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the UN Security Council to follow through with the implementation of Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN must form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 102,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest monthly report released today that no fewer than 194 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented in February 2024, with those detained including seven children and five women.

The 20-page report notes that, given the staggering rates of continuing arbitrary arrests, the number of Syrian citizens classified as missing has skyrocketed, so much so that this can be called a phenomenon in itself. Indeed, Syria is one of the worst countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of ‘disappeared’ citizens. The report adds that the Syrian regime surpasses many of the world’s other authoritarian regimes by virtue of having absolute hegemony over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The regime has wielded this hegemony to promulgate a multitude of laws and decrees that violate international human rights law, as well as the principles pf law and the parameters of arrests and interrogation established in domestic legislation and the current Constitution of 2012. A part of this process, the report stresses, is legitimizing the crime of torture. There are several texts in Syrian law that outlaw torture, including Article 53 of the current Syrian constitution which bans arbitrary arrest and torture and Article 391 of the Public Penal Code, which provides that anyone who uses coercion during interrogation shall receive a timed prison sentence ranging from three months to three years, while torture is wholly prohibited. Despite these texts, however, other legal texts, including Law No. 16 of 2022 on Criminalizing Torture, explicitly contradict the aforementioned legal articles, and legitimize impunity for torturers.

The report summarizes the arbitrary arrests/detentions and the releases of detainees from various detention centers by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces that were documented in February 2024. The report, however, does not include abductions carried out by unidentified parties. Another exception made by SNHR is of individuals detained for committing criminal offenses, such as murder, theft, narcotics-related crimes, and other crimes that have no political nature or are unrelated to the armed conflict, dissident activism, or freedom of opinion and expression. The report also touches upon the laws and decrees promulgated by the parties to the conflict in relation to issues of arrest and enforced disappearance in the period covered. In much of the reportage, the report incorporates a descriptive and analytic methodology.

The report documents no fewer than 194 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in February 2024, with those detained including seven children and five women (adult female). Of these, 153 have subsequently been classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 86 of the 194 cases, including of one child and three women, while Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for 59 cases, including of six children. Additionally, the report records 14 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), while all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) were responsible for 35 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention, including of two women.

The report also shows the distribution of February’s cases across Syria’s governorates. Analysis of the data shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions documented in February, followed by the governorates of Damascus, then Rural Damascus, then Homs, and then Hama, Idlib, and Hasaka. The report also compares the number of arbitrary arrests/detentions carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling force sin Syria with releases from the various forces’ detention centers documented in February 2024. In this regard, the report stresses that the number of arbitrary arrests far surpasses the number of releases from detention centers, with the number of releases equaling approximately 30 percent of all the detentions documented; this confirms again that at least two or three times as many people are detained as are released, primarily by the Syrian regime, which indicates that these arrest and detention practices are standard policy in comparison to the extremely limited numbers of people released by all parties to the conflict, but mainly from regime detention centers.

The report notes that Syrian regime forces carried out widespread arrests/detentions of civilians in the governorates of Rural Damascus, Hama, Aleppo, and Daraa, on the pretext of failing to join the military or reserve forces as part of the regime’s mandatory military service policy. These arrests were carried out during raids or mass arrests at checkpoints, and even targeted individuals who had previously agreed to settle their security situation with the regime in the areas that saw settlement agreements. Furthermore, the report documents arrests/detentions of civilians who voiced demands and criticized the worsening living situation in regime-held areas, or those who expressed support for the popular movement in Suwayda governorate on social media. These detainees, who include university students and pro-regime media figures, face charges related to the Counter-Cybercrime Law. These arrests were concentrated in the governorates of Latakia and Tartus. There were also multiple arrests/detentions, primarily in Homs governorate, of people travelling to the Syrian-Lebanese borders with the aim of crossing irregularly into Lebanon. Lastly, the report adds that regime forces were also responsible for arrests/detentions targeting returning internally displaced persons (IDPs) or refugees as they attempted to return to their original areas which are under the control of regime forces. These arrests, mainly targeting refugees returning from Lebanon via border crossings, were concentrated in Rural Damascus governorate.

Meanwhile, the report notes, the SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in February 2024. In doing so, SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led coalition helicopters. We also documented arrests/detentions of civilians in connection with accusations of working with the SNA. Moreover, we documented arrests of individuals over their alleged involvement in the ongoing clashes between the SDF and the Arab tribes, with those arrests being concentrated in Deir Ez-Zour governorate. Additionally, the report documents more detentions of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF military training and recruitment camps, which are concentrated in the SDF-held areas in Aleppo governorate. The SDF has also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training, and sending them to military training camps; the parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, HTS detained more civilians in February 2024. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate, targeted media activists, political activists, and local dignitaries. Most of these arrests were carried out in relation to the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’ management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely carried out arbitrarily in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. The group also arrested a number of individuals over their alleged affiliation with the extremist Tahrir Party. Most of these arrests took place in the form of raids and mass arrest, as well as at checkpoints in Idlib governorate.

Furthermore, all armed opposition factions/SNA continued carrying out arbitrary detentions and kidnappings in February 2024, including of women. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, we documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, we documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF, with those arrests being concentrated in Afrin city in Aleppo governorate. Additionally, we recorded arrests/detentions by the SNA’s Military Police that targeted people returning to their homes after being displaced when the SNA took over Afrin in 2018. Those areas were concentrated in a number of villages that are administratively a part of Afrin city.

On the subject of releases, the report documents the release of two detainees, both from regime detention centers in Daraa city, in connection with the amnesty decree promulgated by the Syrian regime on April 30, 2022 (Decree No. 7 of 2022). In Damascus governorate, the report documents the regime’s release of five individuals originally from the governorates of Hama, Daraa, and Damascus, who were released after serving the full term of their arbitrary sentences. As such, these releases were not related to any of the amnesty decrees that have been promulgated to date, with these detainees having been imprisoned for periods of between one to four years. The report also documented the release of 14 individuals, including two women, who had been held without trial for brief periods of time, ranging from a few days to a few months, without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Latakia, Daraa, and Hama, and had spent the duration of their detention in regime security branches.

As the report further reveals, 16 people, including two children, were released in February from SDF detention centers where they had been held for various periods ranging from a few days to four months, with most of these detainees originating from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour and Aleppo. Most of these releases were the result of meditation by tribal intermediaries or came after the detainees had completed their sentences. HTS, meanwhile, released nine people from its detention centers in Idlib governorate, with the released detainees having been detained for periods ranging from a few days to six months, without any clear charges being brought against them. Meanwhile, In February 2024, all armed opposition factions/SNA released 14 people, including four women, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to six months without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most were released only after their families had been extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

As the report further notes, SNHR’s data is classified as a reputable principal source of information for many UN bodies, being used in statements and resolutions. The most recent of these was a draft resolution on the human rights situation in Syria (A/C.3/78/L.43), passed by a vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, which condemned the Syrian regime’s continuation of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This latest resolution also acknowledged that the number of detainees in Syria continues to rise steadily, already exceeding 135,000. Relatedly, the resolution holds the regime responsible for the systematic use of enforced disappearance, which, it noted, constitutes a crime against humanity.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015, and finally in the statement on cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Approximate 68 percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army) are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the Security Council to follow through with the implementation of Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN must form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 102,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest monthly report released today that no fewer than 182 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented in January 2024, with those detained including eight children and four women.

The 19-page report notes that with the staggering rates of continued arbitrary arrest, the number of Syrian citizens classified as missing has skyrocketed, so much so that it can be called a phenomenon in itself. Indeed, Syria is one of the worst countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of ‘disappeared’ citizens. The report adds that the Syrian regime surpasses many of the world’s other authoritarian regimes by virtue of having absolute hegemony over the legislative and judicial branches of government. The regime has wielded this hegemony to promulgate a multitude of laws and decrees that violate international human rights law, as well as the principles pf law and the parameters of arrests and interrogation established in domestic legislation and the current Constitution of 2012. A part of that, the report stresses, is legitimizing the crime of torture. There are several texts in Syrian law that outlaw torture, including Article 53 of the current Syrian constitution which bans arbitrary arrest and torture and Article 391 of the Public Penal Code, which provides that anyone who uses coercion during interrogation shall receive a timed prison sentence ranging from three months to three years, while torture is wholly prohibited. However, other legal texts, including Law No. 16 of 2022 on Criminalizing Torture, explicitly contradict the aforementioned legal articles, and legitimize impunity.

The report outlines the arbitrary arrests/detentions and releases of detainees from the various detention centers by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces that were recorded in January 2024. The report, however, does not include abductions carried out by unidentified parties. Another exception made by SNHR is individuals detained for committing criminal offenses, such as murder, theft, narcotics-related crimes, and other crimes that have no political nature or are not related to the armed conflict, dissident activism, or freedom of opinion and expression. The report also touches upon the laws and decrees promulgated by the parties to the conflict in relation to issues of arrest and enforced disappearance in the period included in the report. In much of the reporting, the report incorporates a descriptive and analytic methodology.

The report documents no fewer than 182 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in January 2024, with those detained including of eight children and four women (adult female). Of these, 146 have been subsequently classified as enforced disappearances. Syrian regime forces were responsible for 79 of the 182 cases, including of two children and one woman, while Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for 61 cases, including of six children. Additionally, the report records eight cases of arbitrary arrest/detention at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), while all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) were responsible for 34 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention, including of three women.

The report also shows the distribution of January’s cases across according to governorate. Analysis of the data shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions documented in January, followed by Deir Ez-Zour, then, in descending order, Rural Damascus, Raqqa, Hasaka, and then Hama. The report also compares the number of arbitrary arrests/detentions carried out by the parties to the conflict and controlling force sin Syria with releases from the various detention centers forces in January 2024. In this regard, the report stresses that the number of arbitrary arrests far surpasses the number of releases from detention centers, with the number of releases equaling approximately 30 percent of all the detentions documented; this confirms again that at least two or three times as many people are detained as are released, primarily by the Syrian regime, which indicates that these arrest and detention practices are standard policy in comparison to the extremely limited numbers of people released by all parties to the conflict, but mainly from regime detention centers.

The report notes that Syrian regime forces carried out widespread arrests/detentions involving civilians in the governorates of Rural Damascus, Hama, Homs, and Daraa, on the pretext of detainees failing to join the military or reserve forces as part of the mandatory military services. Those arrests were carried out during raids or mass arrests at checkpoints, and even targeted individuals who had previously agreed to settle their security situation with the regime in the areas that saw settlement agreements. The report also documents multiple arrests/detentions carried out for the purpose of extorting money from detainees’ families, some of which targeted civilians receiving money transfers from abroad on the pretext of dealing in a foreign currency. While these arrests took place in various Syrian governorates, they were particularly concentrated in Rural Damascus, Damascus, and Hama. The report also documents arrests/detentions that targeted returning internally displaced persons (IDPs) or refugees as they were trying to return to their original areas which are under the control of regime forces. These arrests targeted refugees returning by air via Damascus International Airport and from Lebanon via border crossings. Additionally, the report documents arrests by regime security authorities targeting civilians visiting immigration and passports departments in regime-held governorates to obtain travel documents. Those arrests were concentrated in the governorates of Damascus, Hama, and Homs.

Meanwhile, the report notes, the SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in January 2024. In doing so, SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led coalition helicopters. The report also documents arrests/detentions of civilians over accusations of working with the SNA, with some arrests being followed by severe beatings of the civilians detained. Moreover, the report documents more detentions of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF military training and recruitment centers, which are concentrated in Manbij city and surrounding villages in Aleppo governorate. Additionally, the SDF has also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training, and sending them to military training camps; the parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, HTS detained more civilians in January 2024. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate, targeted media activists, political activists, and local dignitaries. Most of these arrests were carried out in relation to the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely carried out arbitrarily in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. The group also arrested a number of individuals over their alleged affiliation with the extremist Tahrir Party. Most of these arrests took place in the form of raids and mass arrest, as well as at checkpoints in Idlib governorate. Moreover, the HTS’s judiciary summoned a number of media activists and workers with humanitarian groups for interrogation and to warn them against violating the policies enforced by the HTS in the course of their work.

Furthermore, all armed opposition factions/SNA continued carrying out arbitrary detentions and kidnappings in January 2024, including of women and children. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, we documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, as well as being carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, we documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF, with these arrests being concentrated in Afrin city in Aleppo governorate.

On the subject of releases, the report documents the release of one detainee in connection with the amnesty decree promulgated by the Syrian regime on April 30, 2022 (Decree No. 7 of 2022). The detainee in question was released from the ‘government complex’ in Daraa city. In Damascus governorate, the report documents the regime’s release of four individuals originally from the governorates of Hama, Daraa, and Damascus, who were released after serving the full term of their arbitrary sentences. As such, these releases were not related to any of the amnesty decrees that have been promulgated to date, with these detainees having been imprisoned for periods of between one to seven years. The report also documented the release of 11 individuals, including two women, who had been held without trial for brief periods of time, ranging from a few days to a few months, without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Latakia, Daraa, and Hama. Most had spent the duration of their detention in regime security branches.

As the report further reveals, 19 individuals, including one child, were released from SDF detention centers in January 2024, where they had been held for various periods ranging from a few days to five months, with most of these detainees originating from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour and Aleppo. Most of these releases were the result of meditation by tribal intermediaries or came after the detainees had completed their arbitrary sentences. The HTS, on the other hand, released four civilians from its detention centers in Idlib governorate, with the released detainees having been detained for a few days, without any clear charges being brought against them. Meanwhile, In January 2024, all armed opposition factions/SNA released 16 civilians, including one woman, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to four months without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most were released only after their families had been extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

As the report further reveals, SNHR’s data has become a reputable principal source of information for many UN bodies, being used in statements and resolutions. The most recent of these was a draft resolution on the situation of human rights in Syria (A/C.3/78/L.43), passed by a vote on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, condemning the Syrian regime’s continuation of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Additionally, this latest resolution acknowledged that the number of detainees in Syria continues to rise steadily, already exceeding 135,000. Relatedly, the resolution holds the regime responsible for the systematic use of enforced disappearance, which, it noted, constitutes a crime against humanity.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, and finally in the statement of cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016, and in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees detained without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Approximate 68 percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army) are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the Security Council to follow through with the implementation of Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN must form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 102,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in a report released today, that it documented at least 2,317 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in 2023, including of 129 children and 87 women, with 232 cases documented in December. The report stresses that Syrian regime forces primarily target returning internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, citizens expressing dissent, and individuals who have been arrested in relation to the conflict.

The 42-page report explains that most arrests in Syria are carried out without any judicial warrant while the victims are passing through checkpoints or during raids, with the security forces of the regime’s four main intelligence services often responsible for extra-judicial detentions. Every detainee is tortured from the very first moment of his or her arrest and denied any opportunity to contact his or her family or to have access to a lawyer. The authorities also flatly deny the arbitrary arrests they have carried out, and most of the detainees are subsequently categorized as forcibly disappeared.

The report summarizes the cases of arbitrary arrest/detention documented by SNHR in 2023, including December, by the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria, in addition to shedding light on the most notable individual cases and incidents of arbitrary arrest and detention that SNHR’s team was able to document during the same period, as well as categorizing cases and incidents of arrest according to the location of the incident. The report does not include kidnappings and abductions in which SNHR has been unable to identify the responsible party.

The report also documents arbitrary arrests that subsequently turned into enforced disappearances. As the report explains, for a case to be categorized as an enforced disappearance, 20 days must have passed from the day on which the individual in question was arrested, during which time their family were unable to obtain information from the official authorities on their arrest or whereabouts, while the authorities that made the arrest refused to acknowledge holding them.

As the report notes, the laws and legal texts related to torture in the current Syrian constitution and law have not ended or reduced the frequency of torture in the Syrian regime’s detention centers. As the report explains, the state’s heavily centralized control of its detention centers means that it is highly unlikely that deaths due to torture could take place without the knowledge of the ruling regime, further noting that the Syrian regime bears responsibility for proving its claims that the deaths that occurred were not due to torture. The report emphasizes that this systematic torture and the many associated deaths involve not just one of the Syrian regime’s organs, but require the participation of several state institutions, the most prominent of which are: the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the security services, civil prisons, military hospitals, the judiciary, the Ministry of Awqaf, and the Office of Burial Services; this too indicates a high level of coordination and harmony between these institutions, which can only be achieved by senior-level management officials in the Syrian regime controlling all of these institutions.

On a related note, the report refers to Law No. 16 of 2022, issued by the Syrian regime’s President on March 30, 2022, criminalizing torture. According to the new legislation, the regime considers torture to be a felony requiring severe punishment of the perpetrator and any other who participated in inflicting it, as well as of those who incited it. The report lists six key points demonstrating fundamental flaws in the text of the law itself, adding that this law will remain meaningless ink on paper and will not contribute in any way to deterring the security services from practicing torture as long as the regime’s other repressive laws are in force, which are those on which the regime’s power is based, including the texts granting impunity from prosecution to members of the security services, which conflict with many articles of the General Penal Code and the current constitution; other key points include the survival of the exceptional criminal courts (military field court, counter-terrorism court) in Damascus, the authorization of regime security services to investigate citizens for a period that often exceeds two months, the failure to reform the prison organization or subject it to judicial supervision, and the Executive Authority’s encroachment on the judiciary.

The report explains that the Syrian regime issues laws which violate the principles of the law, as well as violating the determinants of arrest and investigation in accordance with local legislation. The Anti-Terrorism Law, the General Penal Code, and the Military Penal Code are among the most prominent laws used to try detainees, and in most cases, the exceptional courts to which the detainees are subjected impose a range of charges. Thus, the detainee does not face one charge, but rather a number of charges, none of which are based on evidence or real facts. The 2012 constitution affirmed that the rule of law is the basis of governance in the state, and that every accused person is innocent until convicted by a court ruling in a fair trial, and that the punishment is limited to the individual, so it is not permissible for family members of a perpetrator of criminal acts such as his wife, forebears or descendants to be detained for his crime, and held as hostages until his arrest. The Constitution prohibits the search or arrest of a person except by virtue of an order or decision issued by the competent judiciary. When a person is arrested, he must be informed of the reasons for his arrest and his rights, with the constitution also forbidding his continuing detention by the administrative authority except by order of the competent judiciary. Likewise, the Code of Criminal Procedure clarifies in Article 17/1 that the Public Prosecutor is the only entity charged with investigating crimes and tracking down their perpetrators, with the security services having no authority in this matter, and that Legislative Decree No. 55 issued on April 21, 2011, which allows the judicial police or their delegates (the security services) to detain suspects for seven days, is subject to renewal by the District Attorney, provided that this period does not exceed sixty days, with security services not completely bound by this legislation; this confirms that the principle of the supremacy of constitutional law remains theoretical and without any real value, and is completely undermined by official government institutions and a judiciary incapable of oversight and accountability due to the loss of its independence and the meddling of the executive and legislative authority.

The report notes that all the amnesty decrees issued by the Syrian regime have led to the release of no more than 7,351 arbitrarily arrested detainees, while the Syrian regime continues to hold roughly 135,253 detainee/forcibly disappeared persons. As such, amnesty decrees only lead to the release of a very limited number of detainees, while arbitrary arrests continue to be carried out in a systematic and widespread manner, with the regime still carrying out arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearance regardless of any amnesty decrees it may issue.

In 2023, the report notes, Syrian regime forces continued to hunt down and arrest individuals who had agreed to settle their security situation with the regime in areas that saw settlements with the regime. These arrests involved civilians that previously worked with armed opposition factions, defectors from the regime military, and former activists in the medical and relief fields. Most of these arrests, which have been concentrated in the governorates of Rural Damascus (Rif Dimshaq), Daraa, Deir Ez-Zour, and Raqqa in 2023, took place during campaigns of mass raids and arrests, and at checkpoints. In total, SNHR documented no fewer than 386 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in 2023 of individuals who had agreed to settle their security situation with the regime. Moreover, the report documents the targeting of civilians in connection with their involvement in the anti-regime movement that took various forms in regime-held areas, including posting videos criticizing the policies of the Syrian regime, writing anti-regime slogans on the walls, distributing pamphlets, and burning photos of Bashar Assad. These arrests were concentrated in the governorates of Latakia, Tartus, Damascus, Rural Damascus, Aleppo, and Deir Ez-Zour. Additionally, there have been widespread arrests carried out by the Syrian regime’s criminal security and general security departments of civilians who expressed their demands and voiced criticism of the worsening living situation or rampant corruption in regime-held areas on social media. Those arrested include pro-regime media figures, university students, and government employees. These detainees face charges connected to the Counter-Cybercrime Law. SNHR has documented the arrest of 114 individuals, including eight women, on the grounds of the Counter-Cybercrime Law in 2023.

The report also documents arrests targeting returning refugees and IDPs which were intensified in the month of May, in tandem with Lebanon’s General Directorate of General Security and the Lebanese military cracking down on and arresting Syrian refugees in Lebanon and forcibly repatriating them to Syria, leading to widespread arrests by the Syrian regime’s security authorities of those repatriated, including women and children. In addition, returning refugees and IDPs have been arrested while attempting to return to their original areas which are under the control of regime forces. These arrests have specifically targeted refugees who returned via crossings with Lebanon and Türkiye, such as the Kassab Crossing, as well as those returning by plane, who’ve been detained at Damascus International Airport. In total, the SNHR documented no fewer than 156 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention by regime forces of individuals returning to their original regime-held areas in 2023, with those detained including of two children and five women (adult female). These cases are divided between 37 IDPs and 119 refugees, most of whom returned from Lebanon. Meanwhile, the report documented the arrest of 97 of the individuals who were forcibly repatriated from Lebanon, including of two children and five women, most of whom were arrested by the Syrian regime’s Military Security Intelligence Directorate in al-Masna border area.

The report also records arrests of civilians by regime security agencies in retaliation for these citizens’ voicing criticism of and objection to the methods used by the Syrian regime to distribute the relief aid designated for those affected by the February 6 earthquake which devastated several areas of Syria, causing a humanitarian catastrophe. These criticisms concerned regime-affiliated forces and militias pillaging the aid donated. Some civilians published and shared photos on social media showing some of these acts taking place, namely the theft and unjust distribution of aid intended for earthquake victims. While these arrests took place in a number of Syrian governorates, they were concentrated particularly in Latakia and Aleppo.

The report also highlights multiple arrests/detentions carried out by personnel from regime security branches for the purpose of extorting detainees’ families, some of which targeted civilians receiving money transfers from abroad on the pretext of dealing in a foreign currency. While these arrests took place in various Syrian governorates, they were particularly concentrated in Rural Damascus, Damascus, Aleppo, and Hama, as well as targeting civilian former detainees who had been released some time ago from regime detention centers.

In terms of releases, the report documents that the Syrian regime released approximately 284 individuals, including four children and two women, who were detained in 2023 for periods ranging from several weeks to a number of months, most of whom never faced trial. These cases occurred in various security branches across Syria. Meanwhile, the report stresses that 2023 saw no releases in the context of the reconciliation settlements that the Syrian regime has been conducting in various areas in Idlib, Daraa, Rural Damascus, and Aleppo.

As the report reveals, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance in an increasing and extensive manner. Most of the raids and arrests carried out by the SDF were conducted on a mass scale and involved SDF personnel indiscriminately opening fire at and beating civilians, as well as wrecking and pillaging homes. Those targeted in the SDF’s crackdowns include civilians, political activists, and people working at SDF institutions. These crackdowns were carried out on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with US-led International Coalition forces being involved in some of the operations. The report also recorded a number of detentions of civilians, including women and children, which were carried out on a mass scale during raids or at checkpoints, for voicing criticism of the living conditions and services in SDF-held areas. These arrests, which were concentrated in the governorates of Hasaka, Deir Ez-Zour, and Raqqa, involved seizing the detainees’ money and mobile phones. Additionally, we recorded that the SDF detained a number of civilians returning from Türkiye to their original homes in SDF-held areas following the February 6 earthquakes. Furthermore, the SDF arrested a number of teachers who took part in widespread protests and strikes that began in early-September of this year and continued up to the end of 2023, with the protestors calling for improved wages and an end to the conscription policies enforced by the SDF in areas under its control. The SDF also carried out arrests of members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria (PDK-S), with these detentions being concentrated in the governorate of Hasaka. Other civilians were arrested on the grounds of their alleged involvement in the ongoing clashes between the group and the Arab tribes in Deir Ez-Zour governorate, while others were arrested and taken to SDF military training and recruitment camps. These arrests were concentrated in Manbij city and the surrounding villages in Aleppo governorate. The SDF has also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training and sending them to military training camps, with the parents and families of these conscripted children forbidden to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report further reveals, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) also continued to target activists, humanitarian workers, local dignitaries, and lawyers through detentions, which mostly took place after these individuals voiced criticism of the group’s policies in its areas of control. These detainees faced various charges including treason or having suspicious links with HTS’ adversaries. These detentions were carried out in arbitrary ways, including raiding and entering homes by force, wrecking these houses’ contents, and seizing phones and laptops, or by abducting detainees from the street, or at temporary checkpoints that separate the different territories, especially those separating HTS’s areas of control from those under the Syrian National Army (SNA). The report further notes that HTS personnel arrested a number of civilians over accusations of being affiliated with the ‘Hurras al-Din’ (Guardians of the Faith) group. Those arrests, which were concentrated in the village of Arab Saed in rural Idlib governorate, involved HTS personnel surrounding the village and enforcing an hours-long curfew there. Similarly, the group carried out widespread arrests targeting individuals accused of being members or supporters of the extremist Tahrir Party, which mostly took place in the form of raids and mass arrests, or at checkpoints. Those arrests were concentrated in the governorates of Idlib and Aleppo. There were also detentions of many individuals, including women, who objected to the arrest crackdowns and tried to move from HTS-held areas to the SNA-held areas in Aleppo governorate.

Additionally, there have been numerous cases in which the HTS ‘Salvation’s Government’s’ Media Directorate summoned male and female media activists over posts they published on their personal social media pages, or over their participation in discussions in virtual groups on various social networking apps in which they’d expressed criticism of the group’s policies.

In 2023, the report continues, all armed opposition factions/SNA also carried out arbitrary and widespread detentions and abductions whose targets included women and children, which were carried out on a mass scale. These detentions and abductions primarily targeted individuals coming from regime-controlled areas to visit their relatives or to cross into Türkiye, with the SNA claiming that it was arresting these individuals to check their backgrounds. Those detained in this way were held for periods ranging from weeks to months in brutal detention conditions without being charged with any offence or put on trial. The report also documented detentions of an ethnic character, which were concentrated in the areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization, without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, and without any clear charges being brought against the detainees. These arrests were carried out by various armed opposition factions as a means of pressurizing or intimidating civilians, or to seize their properties. Additionally, the report documented raids and arrests carried out by the armed opposition factions/SNA targeting civilians who were on their way to participate in a sit-in held in front of the home of civilians shot dead on March 20, 2023, by members of the SNA’s Jaish al-Sharqiya [Army of the East] faction, as the demonstrators were trying to build a fire in celebration of the Kurdish New Year, known as Nowruz, in Jendeires town which is administratively a part of Afrin city Aleppo governorate.

With regard to December, the report documents that Syrian regime forces continued to hunt down and arrest individuals who had agreed to settle their security situation with the regime in areas where it imposed settlements. Most of these arrests, which have been concentrated in Rural Damascus governorate, have taken place during campaigns of mass raids and arrests, and at checkpoints. The report also records sporadic arrests involving civilians for receiving money transfers in a foreign currency (US dollars) across various Syrian governorates, but most notably in Damascus and Homs. Additionally, the report recorded arrests carried out by pro-regime militias/informal regime forces targeting civilians at checkpoints for the purpose of extortion. These arrests were concentrated in Rural Damascus governorate, as well as arrests targeting civilians over their failure to enlist in the regime army’s reserve forces for their mandatory military service. These arrests, which took place in the governorates of Rural Damascus and Hama, were mostly carried out at checkpoints and in the form of raids and mass arrests.

In terms of releases, the report notes that, on November 16, 2023, the Syrian regime promulgated Legislative Decree No. 36 of 2023, providing a general amnesty for all crimes committed before the date of the decree. The decree excludes all prisoners of conscience and detainees arrested in the context of the conflict. As such, no releases of political prisoners or of detainees arrested in the context of the conflict were recorded in connection with this legislative decree. Meanwhile, the report documents the regime’s release of 12 individuals in Damascus governorate, who were mostly originally from the governorates of Rural Damascus, Damascus, Aleppo, Daraa, and Idlib in December. Those 12 were released after they had served their arbitrary sentences. As such, these releases were not related to amnesty decrees 7/2022 or 36/2023, with these detainees having been imprisoned for an average of one to five years. Moreover, the report documents the release of 18 detainees who had been held without trial for brief periods of time, ranging from a few days to a few months, without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Rural Damascus, Daraa, and Homs, and all of them had spent the duration of their detention in security branches.

The report documents at least 2,317 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in 2023, including of 127 children and 87 women, with 1,923 of these cases subsequently categorized as cases of enforced disappearance, all at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria. Of the 2,317 cases, 1,063 were carried out by Syrian regime forces, including of 24 children and 49 women, while the SDF arrested 641 individuals, including 91 children and six women. The report also notes that all armed opposition factions/SNA arrested 365 individuals, including 10 children and 25 women, while HTS detained 248 individuals, including four children and seven women.

The report also shows the distribution of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions in 2023 across Syria. The analysis of the data for this period shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of arbitrary arrests/detentions, followed by Rural Damascus, and then in descending order, Deir Ez-Zour, Idlib, Damascus, Hasaka, Raqqa, and then Daraa.

In December, the report documents at least 232 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention, including of 17 children and six women, with 193 of these cases subsequently categorized as cases of enforced disappearance, all at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria. Of the 232 arbitrary arrests and detentions, 94 were carried out by Syrian regime forces, including of two children and three women, while the SDF arrested 79 individuals, including 14 children. The report also notes that all armed opposition factions/SNA arrested 43 civilians, including three women, while HTS arrested 16 civilians, including one child.

The report also shows the distribution of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions in December across Syria. The analysis of the data for this period shows that Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions documented in December, followed by the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, then, in descending order Rural Damascus, Damascus, Raqqa, Idlib, Hama, and Hasaka and Daraa.

As the report reveals, the vast majority of detainees involved in the popular uprising for democracy in Syria, including political and human rights activists, media workers, relief activists, and similar prisoners of conscience, have been accused by the regime’s security branches of several charges based on testimonies taken from detainees by regime personnel under coercion, intimidation and torture, which are documented within regime security authorities’ reports, with these security reports being referred to the Public Prosecution Service, after which the majority of these cases are referred to either the Counter-Terrorism Court or the Military Field Court; the conditions in these courts fail to meet even the most fundamental standards of fair courts, and they are in reality closer to regime military-security branches in nature.

The report notes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, and finally in the statement of cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016, and in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations in any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees detained without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Sixty-eight percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report notes that the other parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army) are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the Security Council to follow through with the implementation of Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN and the guarantor parties at Astana should form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and reveal the fate of the 102,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, as well as providing a number of additional recommendations.

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Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in a report released today, that it documented at least 221 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in November 2023, with the victims including 19 children and 14 women. The group further reveals that the number of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons acknowledged in the resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 15, 2023, rose to 135,000.

The 30-page report explains that most of the arrests taking place in Syria are carried out by regime forces without any judicial warrant being presented while the victims are passing through checkpoints or during raids, with the security forces of the regime’s four main intelligence services usually responsible for these extra-judicial detentions. Every detainee is tortured from the very first moment of his or her arrest and denied any opportunity to contact his or her family or to have access to a lawyer. The authorities also flatly deny the arbitrary arrests they have carried out, and most of the detainees are subsequently categorized as forcibly disappeared.

The report summarizes the cases of arbitrary arrest/detention documented by SNHR in November 2023 as being carried out by the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria, as well as shedding light on the most notable individual cases and incidents of arbitrary arrest and detention that SNHR’s team was able to document during the same period, in addition to categorizing cases and incidents of arrest according to the location of each incident. The report does not include any information on kidnappings and abductions in which SNHR has been unable to identify the responsible party. The report also documents arbitrary arrests that subsequently turned into enforced disappearances.

As the report further notes, the legislative articles and legal texts related to torture contained in the current Syrian constitution and law have not ended or reduced the frequency of torture in the Syrian regime’s detention centers. In addition, the report explains, the state’s heavily centralized control of its detention centers means that it is highly unlikely that deaths due to torture could take place without the ruling regime’s knowledge, further noting that the Syrian regime bears responsibility for proving its claims that the detainee deaths that occurred in its custody were not due to torture. The report emphasizes that this systematic torture and the many associated deaths involve not just one of the Syrian regime’s organs, but require the participation of several state institutions, the most prominent of which are: the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the security services, civil prisons, military hospitals, the judiciary, the Ministry of Awqaf, and the Office of Burial Services; this too indicates a high level of coordination and harmonization between these institutions, which can only be achieved through senior management-level officials in the Syrian regime controlling all of them.

On a related note, the report refers to Law No. 16 for 2022, issued by the Syrian regime’s President on March 30, 2022, criminalizing torture. This legislation claims that the regime considers torture to be a felony requiring severe punishment for its perpetrator, or for those who participated in it, as well as those who incited it. The report lists six key points demonstrating fundamental flaws in the text of the law itself, adding that this law will remain meaningless ink on paper and will not contribute in any way to deterring the security services from practicing torture as long as the regime’s other repressive laws remain in force, which are those on which the regime’s power is based, including the legislative articles granting impunity from prosecution to members of the security services, which conflict with many articles of the General Penal Code and the current constitution; the survival of the exceptional criminal courts (military field court and counter-terrorism court) in Damascus; the authorization of regime security services to investigate citizens for a period that often exceeds two months; the failure to reform the prison system or subject it to judicial supervision, and the Executive Authority’s encroachment on the judiciary.

The report further explains that the Syrian regime issues laws which blatantly contravene fundamental legal principles and violate the determinants of arrest and investigation in accordance with local legislation. The Anti-Terrorism Law, the General Penal Code, and the Military Penal Code are among the most prominent laws under which detainees are tried, and in most cases, the exceptional courts to which the detainees are subjected impose a range of charges. Thus, each detainee does not simply face one charge, but rather a range of charges, none of which are based on evidence or facts. The 2012 constitution affirmed that the rule of law is considered to be the basis of governance in the state, that every accused person is considered innocent until convicted by a court ruling in a fair trial, and that the punishment should be limited to the individual, meaning it is not permissible for family members of someone accused of criminal acts, such as his wife, forebears or descendants to be detained for his alleged crime, and held as hostages until his arrest. The constitution prohibits the search or arrest of a person except by virtue of an order or decision issued by the competent judiciary. When a person is arrested, according to the constitution, he must be informed of the reasons for his arrest and of his rights, with the constitution also forbidding his continuing detention by the administrative authority except by order of the competent judiciary. Likewise, the Code of Criminal Procedure clarifies in Article 17/1 that the Public Prosecutor is the onlyfigure authorized to investigate crimes and track down their perpetrators, with the security services having no authority in this matter. Legislative Decree No. 55 issued on April 21, 2011, which allows the judicial police or their delegates (the security services) to detain suspects for seven days, is subject to renewal by the District Attorney, provided that this period does not exceed sixty days, with security services not completely bound by this legislation; this confirms that the principle of the supremacy of constitutional law in Syria remains theoretical and without any real value, and is completely undermined by official government institutions and a judiciary incapable of exercising oversight and accountability due to the loss of its independence and the meddling of the executive and legislative authority.

The report notes that all the amnesty decrees issued by the Syrian regime have led to the release of no more than 7,351 arbitrarily arrested detainees in total, while the Syrian regime is still holding approximately 135,253 detainees/forcibly disappeared persons. As such, it is clear that amnesty decrees only lead to the release of a very limited number of detainees, while arbitrary arrests continue to be carried out in a systematic and widespread manner, with the regime still carrying out these arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances regardless of any amnesty decrees it may issue.

The report stresses that Syrian regime forces have continued to persecute and target Syrian citizens in areas under regime control in connection with their political dissent and expression of opinions, despite the right to both being guaranteed by the constitution and international law. This once again proves a crucial and inescapable truth – that no Syrian citizen can feel safe from arrest since these are carried out by the regime’s security services without any legal grounds or any oversight by any independent judiciary. Following these arrests, detainees are routinely classified as forcibly disappeared persons, showing once again that the areas under the Syrian regime’s control cannot be considered even remotely to be safe havens, and more importantly, are certainly wholly unsafe places for the return of refugees. The report stresses that there will be no stability or safety as long as the same security apparatus exists, adding that the Syrian regime’s security authorities have been committing crimes against humanity since 2011.

The report also highlights certain patterns of violations that marked the month of November. Firstly, Syrian regime forces continued to hunt down and arrest individuals who had agreed to security settlements in areas that saw settlements with the regime. Most of the month’s arrests, which were concentrated in the governorates of Rural Damascus (Rif Dimshaq) and Daraa, took place during campaigns of mass raids and arrests, and at checkpoints. Additionally, the report documents arrests by the Syrian regime’s Criminal Security branch in the governorates of Latakia, Tartus, and Homs, of civilians and government employees over their voicing criticism of corruption and the poor living conditions in regime-held areas. Those arrested were charged on the grounds of the Counter Cybercrime Law, which the Syrian regime uses to justify the arrest of citizens and government workers for voicing such criticism of corruption and the poor living conditions in areas under its control. Thirdly, the report documents arrests by regime forces in Aleppo governorate targeting dozens of civilians, including women, who were travelling from areas under the SDF to regime areas. Those arrests took place at checkpoints. Fourth, the report documents arrests carried out by the Syrian regime’s Fourth Division and members of pro-regime militias/informal forces targeting a number of civilians who were trying to enter al-Hajar al-Aswad area in Damascus city to check on their homes after they had fled the area some time ago. It should be noted that the regime requires residents of al-Hajar al-Aswad to obtain official clearance before allowing them to check on or return to their properties. Those clearance documents should be obtained by submitting official requests together with proof of ownership of the property in the neighborhood with the Damascus Governorate council or the regime’s Military Security branch in the area. Fifth, the report documents random arrests carried out by regime forces targeting citizens from the governorates of Hama, Damascus, Homs, and Rural Damascus on the pretext of possessing mobile phones not standardized by the customs authority, for the purpose of extorting these individuals. Finally, the report documents arrests targeting civilians on the grounds of their failure to enlist in the regime army’s reserve forces for their mandatory military service. These arrests took place across Syria.

As the report further reveals, the SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in November, resulting in increasing numbers of detentions and enforced disappearances. SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led coalition helicopters. We also documented detentions in connection with the ongoing clashes between the SDF and local Arab tribes in Deir Ez-Zour governorate. Some of these arrests involved pillaging the detainees’ homes Moreover, we have documented more detentions of civilians for forced conscription, with these detainees taken to SDF training and recruitment centers, which are concentrated in Manbij city and surrounding villages in Aleppo governorate. The SDF has also continued abducting children with the objective of conscripting them for military training and sending them to military training camps; the parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report additionally notes, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) also detained more civilians in November. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate, targeted media activists and political figures. Most of these arrests were carried out in relation to the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely carried out arbitrarily in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. We also documented arrests by HTS targeting some civilians over voicing criticism of the group on social media. Meanwhile, all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) continued carrying out arbitrary detentions and kidnappings in November, including of women and children. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, the report documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, with these arrests also carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, we documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF. Additionally, some SNA personnel targeted civilians in response to their demands that the SNA return their houses to them after a number of SNA factions had seized the properties for their own use.

On the subject of detainee releases, the report notes that, on November 16, 2023, the Syrian regime promulgated Legislative Decree No. 36 of 2023 which grants amnesty for crimes committed before the date of the decree, although it excludes all political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, and prisoners detained in connection with the armed conflict. As such, no releases of detainees that fall into those categories in relation to this amnesty decree were recorded. The report does, however, document seven releases in Damascus governorate in November of individuals originally from the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour and Damascus, all of whom were released after serving their arbitrary sentences. As such, these releases were not related to amnesty decree 7/2022 or 36/2023, with these detainees having been imprisoned for an average of one to three years. Additionally, the report documents the release of 16 detainees who had been held without trial for brief periods of time, ranging from a few days to a few months, without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Latakia, Tartus, and Aleppo, and all of them had spent the duration of their detention in security branches. The report documented no releases related to the amnesty decree issued by the Syrian regime on December 21, 2022 (Legislative Decree No. 24 of 2022).

The report further reveals that 21 individuals were released from SDF detention centers where they had been held for periods ranging from a few days to two months, with most of those released originally coming from Deir Ez-Zour governorate. Most of these releases were a result of meditation by tribal intermediaries or came after the detainees had served their arbitrary sentences. Meanwhile, HTS released four civilians from its detention centers in Idlib governorate after detaining them without any clear charges for a few days. Similarly, all armed opposition factions/SNA released 12 civilians in November, after detaining them for periods ranging from a few days to three months without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most of them were released only after their families were extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

The report documents at least 221 arbitrary arrests/detentions in November 2023, including of 19 children and 14 women (adult female), with 187 of these cases subsequently categorized as enforced disappearances, at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria. Of the 221 cases, 91 were carried out at the hands of Syrian regime forces, and included one child and 13 women, while the SDF arrested 76 individuals, including 16 children. The report also reveals that HTS arrested 13 individuals, while all armed opposition factions/SNA arrested 41 individuals, including two children and one woman.

The report also shows the distribution of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions for October across Syria. Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions documented in November, followed by the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, then, in descending order Rural Damascus, Damascus, Idlib, Raqqa, and Hasaka and Homs.

The report further reveals that, on Wednesday, November 15, 2023, the member states of the UN General Assembly voted on draft resolution A/C.3/78/L.43, which condemns the Syrian regime’s continuing perpetration of gross, systematic, and widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The report adds that the resolution draws upon SNHR’s data in many of the figures and much of the information it cites. In this context, it should be noted that SNHR has been working closely with many UN bodies on Syria for nearly 13 years, including the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (COI), the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), the UNICEF, and many UN special rapporteurs.

As the report further notes, the vast majority of those detained for their involvement in the popular uprising for democracy in Syria, including political and human rights activists, media workers, relief activists, and similar prisoners of conscience, have been accused by the regime’s security branches of several charges based on testimonies extracted from detainees by regime personnel under coercion, intimidation and torture, with these testimonies documented within regime security authorities’ reports, which are referred to the Public Prosecution Service, after which the majority of these cases are referred to either the Counter-Terrorism Court or the Military Field Court; the conditions in these courts fail to meet even the most fundamental standards of fair courts, and they are in reality closer to regime military-security branches in nature.

The report emphasizes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria, which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, and finally in the statement of cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016, and in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015.

The report further stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations under any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charge, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Sixty-eight percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report additionally notes that the other, non-regime parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army) are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have also committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the UN Security Council to follow through with the implementation of Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN and the guarantor parties at Astana should form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and to reveal the fate of the 102,000 people  classified as missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and that the families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, concluding by providing a number of additional recommendations.

Download the full report

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for/ Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in a report released today, that it documented at least 193 cases of arbitrary arrest/detention in October 2023, including of 13 children and four women. The group added that local pro-regime militias have been targeting and hunting down civilians in the hopes of extorting them.

The 28-page report explains that most of the arrests taking place in Syria are carried out without any judicial warrant being presented while the victims are passing through checkpoints or during raids, with the security forces of the regime’s four main intelligence services usually responsible for these extra-judicial detentions. Every detainee is tortured from the very first moment of his or her arrest and denied any opportunity to contact his or her family or to have access to a lawyer. The authorities also flatly deny the arbitrary arrests they have carried out, and most of the detainees are subsequently categorized as forcibly disappeared.

The report summarizes the cases of arbitrary arrest/detention documented by SNHR in October 2023 as being carried out by the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria, as well as shedding light on the most notable individual cases and incidents of arbitrary arrest and detention that SNHR’s team was able to document during the same period, in addition to categorizing cases and incidents of arrest according to the location of each incident. The report does not include any information on kidnappings and abductions in which SNHR has been unable to identify the responsible party. The report also documents arbitrary arrests that subsequently turned into enforced disappearances.

As the report further notes, the legislative articles and legal texts related to torture contained in the current Syrian constitution and law have not ended or reduced the frequency of torture in the Syrian regime’s detention centers. In addition, the report explains, the state’s heavily centralized control of its detention centers means that it is highly unlikely that deaths due to torture could take place without the ruling regime’s knowledge, further noting that the Syrian regime bears responsibility for proving its claims that the detainee deaths that occurred in its custody were not due to torture. The report emphasizes that this systematic torture and the many associated deaths involve not just one of the Syrian regime’s organs, but require the participation of several state institutions, the most prominent of which are: the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the security services, civil prisons, military hospitals, the judiciary, the Ministry of Awqaf, and the Office of Burial Services; this too indicates a high level of coordination and harmonization between these institutions, which can only be achieved through senior management-level officials in the Syrian regime controlling all of them.

On a related note, the report refers to Law No. 16 for 2022, issued by the Syrian regime’s President on March 30, 2022, criminalizing torture. This legislation claims that the regime considers torture to be a felony requiring severe punishment for its perpetrator, or for those who participated in it, as well as those who incited it. The report lists six key points demonstrating fundamental flaws in the text of the law itself, adding that this law will remain meaningless ink on paper and will not contribute in any way to deterring the security services from practicing torture as long as the regime’s other repressive laws remain in force, which are those on which the regime’s power is based, including the legislative articles granting impunity from prosecution to members of the security services, which conflict with many articles of the General Penal Code and the current constitution; the survival of the exceptional criminal courts (military field court and counter-terrorism court) in Damascus; the authorization of regime security services to investigate citizens for a period that often exceeds two months; the failure to reform the prison system or subject it to judicial supervision, and the Executive Authority’s encroachment on the judiciary.

The report further explains that the Syrian regime issues laws which blatantly contravene fundamental legal principles and violate the determinants of arrest and investigation in accordance with local legislation. The Anti-Terrorism Law, the General Penal Code, and the Military Penal Code are among the most prominent laws under which detainees are tried, and in most cases, the exceptional courts to which the detainees are subjected impose a range of charges. Thus, each detainee does not simply face one charge, but rather a range of charges, none of which are based on evidence or facts. The 2012 constitution affirmed that the rule of law is considered to be the basis of governance in the state, that every accused person is considered innocent until convicted by a court ruling in a fair trial, and that the punishment should be limited to the individual, meaning it is not permissible for family members of someone accused of criminal acts, such as his wife, forebears or descendants to be detained for his alleged crime, and held as hostages until his arrest. The constitution prohibits the search or arrest of a person except by virtue of an order or decision issued by the competent judiciary. When a person is arrested, according to the constitution, he must be informed of the reasons for his arrest and of his rights, with the constitution also forbidding his continuing detention by the administrative authority except by order of the competent judiciary. Likewise, the Code of Criminal Procedure clarifies in Article 17/1 that the Public Prosecutor is the onlyfigure authorized to investigate crimes and track down their perpetrators, with the security services having no authority in this matter. Legislative Decree No. 55 issued on April 21, 2011, which allows the judicial police or their delegates (the security services) to detain suspects for seven days, is subject to renewal by the District Attorney, provided that this period does not exceed sixty days, with security services not completely bound by this legislation; this confirms that the principle of the supremacy of constitutional law in Syria remains theoretical and without any real value, and is completely undermined by official government institutions and a judiciary incapable of exercising oversight and accountability due to the loss of its independence and the meddling of the executive and legislative authority.

The report notes that all the amnesty decrees issued by the Syrian regime have led to the release of no more than 7,351 arbitrarily arrested detainees in total, while the Syrian regime is still holding approximately 135,253 detainees/forcibly disappeared persons. As such, it is clear that amnesty decrees only lead to the release of a very limited number of detainees, while arbitrary arrests continue to be carried out in a systematic and widespread manner, with the regime still carrying out these arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances regardless of any amnesty decrees it may issue.

The report stresses that Syrian regime forces have continued to persecute and target Syrian citizens in areas under regime control in connection with their political dissent and expression of opinions, despite the right to both being guaranteed by the constitution and international law. This once again proves a crucial and inescapable truth – no Syrian citizen can feel safe from arrest since these are carried out by the regime’s security services without any legal grounds or any oversight by any independent judiciary. Following these arrests, detainees are routinely classified as forcibly disappeared persons, showing once again that the areas under the Syrian regime’s control cannot be considered even remotely to be safe havens, and more importantly, are certainly wholly unsafe places for the return of refugees. The report stresses that there will be no stability or safety as long as the same security apparatus exists, adding that the Syrian regime’s security authorities have been committing crimes against humanity since 2011.

The report also highlights certain patterns of violations that marked the month of October. Firstly, in October, regime forces continued to hunt down and arrest individuals who had agreed to security settlements in areas that saw settlements with the regime. Most of these arrests, which have been concentrated in the governorates of Rural Damascus (Rif Dimshaq), Daraa, and Deir Ez-Zour, took place during campaigns of mass raids and arrests, and at checkpoints. Moreover, we recorded arrests by Syrian regime forces targeting internally displaced persons (IDPs) returning from the eastern rural Deir Ez-Zour governorate, which is under the control of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to Deir Ez-Zour city on the grounds of their involvement in the ongoing clashes between the SDF and local Arab tribes in rural Deir Ez-Zour governorate. Most of these arrests were carried out during raids or in the form of mass arrests at checkpoints. Additionally, the report records arrests by pro-regime/unofficial regime forces at regime checkpoints. These arrests, which were concentrated in Rural Damascus governorate, were carried out for the purpose of extortion. Furthermore, the report records random widespread arrests of citizens in the governorates of Rural Damascus and Hama, most of which took place at checkpoints and as part of mass raid and arrest campaigns on the pretext of the detainees failing to join reserve forces as part of their mandatory military service.

As the report further reveals, the SDF also continued enforcing the group’s policies of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in October, resulting in increasing numbers of detentions and enforced disappearances. SDF personnel continued carrying out campaigns of mass raids and detentions, targeting civilians on the pretext of fighting ISIS, with some of these arrest campaigns backed by US-led coalition helicopters. The report also documented detentions in connection with the ongoing clashes between the SDF and Arab tribes in Deir Ez-Zour governorate. Moreover, the report records detentions involving civilians in relation to an attack on an SDF military vehicle, with these arrest operations, which were concentrated in eastern Deir Ez-Zour governorate involving the complete demolition of some of the detainees’ homes. The SDF also continued abducting children with the intention of conscripting them for military training and sending them to military training camps; the parents and families of these conscripted children are not allowed to contact them, while the SDF refuses to disclose their fate.

As the report additionally notes, October also saw Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS) detaining more civilians. These arrests, which were concentrated in Idlib governorate, targeted media activists and politicians. Most of these arrests were carried out in relation to the detainees expressing opinions critical of HTS’s management of areas under its control. These detentions are routinely carried out arbitrarily in the form of raids in which HTS members storm their victims’ homes, often breaking down the doors, or abducting their victims in the street or while they’re passing through temporary checkpoints. The report also documented HTS’ arrest of a number of individuals over accusations of working with Syrian regime forces, with these arrests occurring during raids or in the form of mass raids at checkpoints. Meanwhile, the report continues, all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) also continued carrying out arbitrary detentions and kidnappings in October, including of women and children. Most of these detentions were conducted on a mass scale, targeting individuals coming from areas controlled by the Syrian regime or the SDF. In addition, we documented detentions that exhibited an ethnic character, with these incidents concentrated in areas under the control of the armed opposition factions/SNA in Aleppo governorate. Most of these arrests occurred without judicial authorization and without the participation of the police force, which is the sole legitimate administrative authority responsible for arrests and detentions through the judiciary, with these arrests also carried out without any clear charges being presented against those being detained. Furthermore, we documented raids and arrests by SNA personnel targeting civilians who were accused of working with the SDF.

On the subject of detainee releases, the report documented four releases in Damascus governorate of individuals originally from the governorates of Hama and Damascus in October, who were released after serving their arbitrary sentences. As such, these releases were not related to amnesty decree 7/2022, with these detainees having been imprisoned for an average of one to four years. Additionally, the report recorded the release of 13 detainees who had been held without trial for brief periods of time, ranging from a few days to a few months, without appearing before a court. Most of these detainees came from the governorates of Latakia, Tartus, and Deir Ez-Zour, and all of them had spent the duration of their detention in security branches. The report documented no releases related to the amnesty decree issued by the Syrian regime on December 21, 2022 (Legislative Decree No. 24 of 2022).

The report further reveals that 19 individuals were released from SDF detention centers where they had been held for periods ranging from a few days to two months, with most of those released originating from the governorate of Deir Ez-Zour. Most of these releases were a result of meditation by tribal intermediaries or came after the detainees had served their arbitrary sentences. Meanwhile, HTS released six civilians from its detention centers in Idlib governorate after detaining them without any clear charges for periods ranging from a few days to four months. Similarly, all armed opposition factions/SNA released nine civilians in October, after detaining for periods ranging from a few days to three months without bringing any clear charges against them or putting them on trial. Most of them were released only after their families were extorted into paying sums of money to secure their release.

The report documents at least 193 arbitrary arrests/detentions in October 2023, including of 13 children and four women (adult female), with 163 of these cases subsequently categorized as enforced disappearances, at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria. Of the 193 cases, 78 were carried out at the hands of Syrian regime forces, and included three children and one woman, while the SDF arrested 61 individuals, including nine children. The report also reveals that HTS arrested 17 individuals, while all armed opposition factions/SNA arrested 33 individuals, including one child and three women.

The report also shows the distribution of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions for October across Syria. Aleppo governorate saw the highest number of cases of arbitrary arrests/detentions documented in October, followed by the governorates of Deir Ez-Zour, then, in descending order Rural Damascus, Damascus, Hasaka, Idlib, and then both Raqqa and Daraa.

As the report further notes, the vast majority of those detained for their involvement in the popular uprising for democracy in Syria, including political and human rights activists, media workers, relief activists, and similar prisoners of conscience, have been accused by the regime’s security branches of several charges based on testimonies extracted from detainees by regime personnel under coercion, intimidation and torture, with these testimonies documented within regime security authorities’ reports, which are referred to the Public Prosecution Service, after which the majority of these cases are referred to either the Counter-Terrorism Court or the Military Field Court; the conditions in these courts fail to meet even the most fundamental standards of fair courts, and they are in reality closer to regime military-security branches in nature.

The report emphasizes that the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons is one of the most crucial human rights issues in Syria, which there has been no progress in resolving despite its inclusion in several UN Security Council resolutions, as well as in UN General Assembly resolutions, in Kofi Annan’s plan, and finally in the statement of cessation of hostilities issued in February 2016, and in Security Council resolution 2254 of December 2015.

The report further stresses that the Syrian regime has not fulfilled any of its obligations under any of the international treaties and conventions it has ratified, most particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also violated several articles of the Syrian Constitution itself, with thousands of detainees imprisoned without any arrest warrant for many years, without charges, and prevented from appointing a lawyer and from receiving family visits. Sixty-eight percent of all detentions documented have subsequently been categorized as enforced disappearance cases.

The report additionally notes that the other, non-regime parties (Syrian Democratic Forces, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, and all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army) are also all obliged to implement the provisions of international human rights law, and that they have also committed widespread violations through arrests and enforced disappearances.

In the report, SNHR again calls on the UN Security Council to follow through with the implementation of Resolution 2042, Resolution 2043, and Resolution 2139.

The report stresses that the UN and the guarantor parties at Astana should form an impartial special committee to monitor cases of arbitrary arrest and to reveal the fate of the 102,000 missing persons in Syria, 85 percent of whom are detained by the Syrian regime. The report adds that pressure should be applied on all parties to immediately reveal their detention records in accordance with a timetable, and to immediately make detainees’ whereabouts public, and allow humanitarian organizations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to have direct access to them.

Lastly, the report emphasizes that children and women should immediately be released from captivity, and that the families and friends of detainees or wanted individuals should not be detained as prisoners of war, concluding by providing a number of additional recommendations.

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