(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian rights advocates to launch on Friday a solidarity campaign on the International Day of Victims of Forced Disappearance in the opposition-held areas and refuge countries.
Mohamed Ka’kah, president of the Association for the Defense of the Detainees in Syria, said that they are working with a group of human rights activists to prepare for a big Twitter campaign starting on Friday at 6 pm, called 'Unshackle.'
"We feel the pain and anguish of the families of the detainees, their children and their families through the large numbers of cases that we have reviewed and are following up," Ka’kah said.
Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.N. political chief said last August that more than 100,000 people in Syria have been detained, abducted or gone missing during the eight-year conflict, with the government mainly responsible.
According to Ka’kah , all media and activists who have been selected to prepare and carry out this campaign are media experts and are well-known for their loyalty to the Syrian revolution.
"We will follow up with them in the future to create an electronic army responsible for protecting the revolution and defending its causes and values.”
Syrian women were also a subject for detention and forced disappearance by the Syrian regime.
According to the International Conscience Movement, an NGO, more than 13,500 women have been jailed since the Syrian conflict began, while more than 7,000 women remain in detention, where they are subjected to torture, rape and sexual violence.
Zeina Haji Yusuf, former detainee and a campaign participant said, “In my country, young men spend their lives in prisons, chased without reason. In my homeland, the child no longer waits for her father, who is either in a grave or in a prison without a key. In my homeland, there are tears of widows, the whines of orphans and the mother of a martyr, and the pain of a wounded man.
“No personal defenses, no laws, no society to protect. This campaign is the least we can do to shed light on the scourge of our detainees, and let the world see the injustice and brutality they endure in Assad's militia jails and prisons.”
The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented at least 569 cases of arbitrary arrests in August, including 362 cases of enforced disappearance.
The report documents 229 cases of arbitrary arrests by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, including 19 children and 12 women. It also documents 48 cases of arbitrary arrests by the armed opposition, including two children and two women.
At least 3,618 cases of arbitrary arrests were documented by SNHR since the start of 2019.
Eight years of war in Syria have killed 560,000 people and driven half the pre-war population of 22 million from their homes, including more than 6 million as refugees to neighbouring countries.
Zaman Al Wasl
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