Bassam Safar, a reporter and writer, born in 1962, who works as an editor in the cultural section of the North Press Agency and is a member of the National Coordination Committee’s executive office, from al Salamiya city in east of Hama suburbs governorate, currently living in Damascus city, was arrested by Syrian regime forces’ personnel on June 24, 2021, as he was passing through a checkpoint at the entrance of al Dwail’a neighborhood in Damascus city heading to his home. Following his arrest, he was taken to an undisclosed location.
The arrest was conducted without any legal arrest warrant being issued by a court, with no member of Bassam’s family being informed of his arrest or whereabouts, and with his phone being confiscated, preventing him from contacting his family or a lawyer. SNHR fears that he 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 131,178 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.
