On January 5, 2023, servicemen from the Syrian regime’s Eighth division, a Military Security division, arrested five civilians, one of them a nurse, from the same family. The arrests were carried out during a raid on the family’s house in their home town of Mata’iya in the eastern suburbs of Daraa governorate. The family members were all taken to an undisclosed location.
The arrests were carried out without presenting any court-issued legal warrant, while the detainees’ other family members were not informed of their detention, their phones were seized, and they have not been allowed to contact any family members or lawyers.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights is concerned that the detainees may be subjected to torture in detention and may go on to become yet more cases of enforced disappearance, with 85% of all those detained by the Syrian regime falling into this category.
We call for the provision of both material and moral reparations for the victims and their families, and call on all parties to put an end to all arbitrary detentions whose only purpose is to spread mass fear and extort people.
We also call for revealing the fate of the thousands of persons forcibly disappeared by Syrian regime forces, which is a subject of grave concern.
