Ahmad Tayseer al Eisa al Khatib, a 27-year-old media activist and student at the Faculty of Mass Communication at Damascus University, from al Jiza town in Daraa governorate eastern suburbs, was arrested by Syrian regime forces in late 2018, while he was passing through one of the regime’s checkpoints as he was heading from Damascus city to Daraa city. Since then, he has been classified as forcibly disappeared, with the Syrian regime denying his detention and preventing anyone, even a lawyer, from visiting him. On August 16, 2022, his family learnt that he had died in Seydnaya Military Prison in Damascus Suburbs governorate. SNHR’s data from numerous sources confirms that he was in good health at the time of his arrest, indicating that he probably died due to torture and medical negligence.
SNHR can confirm that Syrian regime forces failed to hand Ahmad’s body over to his family; this is standard practice for the regime, with the bodies of the majority of detainees who die in its detention centers being disposed of through mass cremations. Since the whereabouts of these prisoners’ remains is unknown and they are not handed over to their relatives, these detainees continue to be classified as being among the forcibly disappeared.
SNHR can confirm that at least 132,667 Syrian citizens are currently still detained or forcibly disappeared in the regime’s detention centers, constituting a grave threat to the detainees’ wellbeing.
SNHR notes that at least 14,464 Syrian citizens have died due to torture in Syrian regime detention centers.
