A boy, identified as 16-year-old Ghaith Ghaleb al-Bad’iesh from Suwayda city, was arrested on October 20, 2024, by Syrian regime forces in al-Garage area in Homs city while on his way to the Syrian-Lebanese borders as he was attempting to cross into Lebanon. He was then taken to the Syrian regime’s Political Security Intelligence Directorate in Homs city.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) notes that the arrest was carried out without any court-issued legal warrant being presented. Ghaith’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 since then.
SNHR is concerned that he 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 Ghaith’s 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.
