A woman, identified as Rita Nawwaf al-Aqbani who works at St. Ephrem Patriarchal Development Committee, from Um al-Rumman village in southern rural Suwayda governorate and lives in Jaramana city in Rural Damascus governorate, was arrested on June 10, 2024, by Syrian regime forces from a public transportation vehicle in Baghdad Street in Damascus city. She was thane taken to an undisclosed location.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) notes that the arrest was carried out without any court-issued legal warrant being presented. Rita’s family was not informed of her arrest, while her phone was seized, and she has not been allowed to contact her family or a lawyer since then.
SNHR is concerned that she may be subjected to torture in detention and may go on to become yet another forcibly disappeared person, with 85 percent of all those detained falling into this category.
We call for the provision of both material and moral reparations for Rita and all other 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 on the regime to reveal the fate of thousands of people forcibly disappeared in its detention centers. We are seriously concerned about their fates.
