Syrian regime forces carried out a series of raids in Janoub al Mal’ab neighborhood of Hama city on January 31 and February 1 and 2, 2021. SNHR has documented that nine civilians were arrested in the raids over anti-regime graffiti that appeared on some walls in the neighborhood and taken to an undisclosed location. The arrests were conducted without any legal arrest warrants being issued by a court, with no members of detainees’ families being informed of their arrest or whereabouts, and with their phones being confiscated, preventing them from contacting their family or lawyers. SNHR fears that they will be subjected to torture and ultimately classified as forcibly ‘disappeared’, like approximately 85 percent of all detained persons in Syria. SNHR can confirm that at least 130,758 Syrian citizens are still detained or forcibly disappeared in the regime’s detention centers, constituting a grave threat to the detainees’ wellbeing, given the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
