A man from al Mayadeen city in the eastern suburbs of Deir Ez-Zour governorate, named as Khalil Kamel al Sfouk, was arrested by Syrian regime forces when he was passing through a checkpoint in the southern entrance of the city on November 8, 2020, and taken to an undisclosed location.
The arrest was conducted without any legal arrest warrant being issued by a court, with no member of Khalil’s family being informed of his arrests or whereabouts, and with his phone being confiscated, preventing him from contacting his family or lawyer. SNHR fears that he will be subjected to torture and ultimately classified as forcibly ‘disappeared’, like approximately 85 percent of all detained persons.
SNHR can confirm that at least 130,689 Syrian citizens are still detained or forcibly disappeared in the regime’s detention centers, constituting a grave threat to the detainees’ wellbeing, given the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
