Syrian regime forces personnel carried out raids in al Kashef neighborhood in Daraa city on July 31, 2021, with SNHR documenting the arrest of six civilians, including a former policeman who defected from the regime; all those detained were taken to an undisclosed location.
SNHR notes that Syrian regime forces have besieged the Daraa al Balad area, Tareeq al Sadd neighborhood and the city’s camps since June 2021, arresting several residents.
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 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 in Syria.
SNHR can confirm that at least 131,178 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.
