Sixty-year-old Ma’wad Faisal Sheikhou, the head of the al-Beskan Tribe, from Um al-Housh village, which is administratively part of al-Shahba area in the northern suburbs of Aleppo governorate, was arrested on April 8, 2023, by personnel from the Syrian regime’s infamous Air Force Intelligence Directorate at a regime checkpoint while travelling from al-Shahba area to Aleppo city. He was taken to a regime detention center at the Kuweires Military Airbase in the eastern suburbs of Aleppo governorate.
The arrest was made without any court-issued legal warrant being presented. and Ma’wad’s family was not informed of his arrest, while his phone was seized and he has not been allowed to contact his family or a lawyer.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) is concerned that he may be subjected to torture in detention and may go on to become yet another case of enforced disappearance, with 85 percent of all those detained falling into this category.
We call for the provision of both material and moral reparations for the victims of such detentions and for 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. We have serious concerns about their fate.
