A man, identified as Mukhtar Bakkar, born in 1976, was arrested on October 2, 2023, by the pro-regime Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigade militia at a checkpoint on the road between his hometown of al-Hajjira town and the nearby town of Sayyidah Zaynab, both in southwestern Rural Damascus or ‘Rif Dimashq’ governorate. He was then taken to an undisclosed location.
The arrest was carried out without any court-issued legal warrant being presented. Mukhtar’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.
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 enforced disappearance case, with 85 percent of all those detained falling into this category.
We call for the provision of both material and moral reparations for Bakkar’s and all other detainees 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.
