On March 20, 2021, Syrian regime forces personnel arrested six civilians, from Ein Tarma town in the east of Damascus suburbs governorate, at a checkpoint in Kafr Batna town in Eastern Ghouta in the east of the governorate, following an argument with regime personnel at the checkpoint and took them to a detention center in Damascus city.
The arrests were conducted without any legal arrest warrants being issued by a court, with no members of the detainees’ families being informed of their arrest 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 in Syria.
SNHR can confirm that at least 131,106 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.
