On February 10, 2021, Syrian regime forces carried out an arrest campaign at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Izraa city in the eastern suburbs of Daraa governorate. SNHR documented that seven civilians from al Baq’a village in the governorate, all of whom had agreed on a settlement previously, were arrested and taken to an undisclosed location.
The arrests were conducted without any legal arrest warrants being issued by a court, with no members of the detained people’s families being informed of their arrests or whereabouts, and with their phones being confiscated, preventing them from contacting their families or lawyers. SNHR fears that they 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 130,758 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.
