A 30-year-old man, named as Muhammad Mahmoud Khalil, from Mu’adamiyet al Sham city in west Damascus suburbs governorate, was arrested by Syrian regime forces on May 11, 2021, in front of the local council building in the city center over claims that he had shouted insulting phrases about the Syrian regime and was taken to an undisclosed location.
The arrest was conducted without any legal arrest warrant being issued by a court, with no member of Muhammad’s family being informed of his arrest or whereabouts, and with his phone being confiscated, preventing him from contacting his family or a lawyer. SNHR fears that he 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, especially given the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
