Student Salaheddin al-Tabbaa, who does voluntary work for the Red Crescent, has been subjected to enforced disappearance by the Syrian authorities. He was arrested, on 5 September 2014, at the Syrian-Lebanese border. He is at risk of torture and other ill-treatment.

World leaders are failing to offer protection to Syria’s most vulnerable refugees with catastrophic consequences, Amnesty International has warned in a new briefing ahead of a UN pledging conference in Geneva on 9 December.

A Syrian couple, Rania Alabbasi and her husband Abdulrahman Yasin, and their six children, now aged three to 15, have been subjected to enforced disappearance by the Syrian authorities. They were arrested in March 2013.

Peaceful political activist Gebrail Moushe Kourie is to be tried by the Anti-Terrorism Court, which does not abide by international fair trial standards. He has been in custody since December 2013 and has been held in ‘Adra Prison since February. There are concerns that he may have been tortured or otherwise ill-treated.

Syrian physicist Faten Rajab Fawaz, a prisoner of conscience, is awaiting trial before a Military Field Court, whose proceedings are grossly unfair. She has been detained since 24 December 2011, seemingly as a result of her peaceful activism.

Amnesty International has obtained details of a horrific raid in which 15 civilians, including seven children, were summarily killed on 29 May in a village in northern Syria raising fears of further attacks against residents in the area. 

The UN Security Council must take concrete action, including threatening targeted sanctions, against parties in Syria that are brazenly flouting the terms of a unanimous UN resolution calling for immediate humanitarian access and an end to human rights abuses, said Amnesty International. 

‘Ali Sayed al-Shihabi, a Palestinian refugee living in Syria, who was detained in December 2012 and then subjected to enforced disappearance, has been confirmed to have been in the custody of the Syrian authorities. But his place of detention and present condition remain unknown.

Introduction
The armed conflict raging in Syria continues to have a catastrophic effect for millions of the country’s citizens. At least 2.6 million have fled the country as refugees, severely impacting Syria’s neighbouring states, and at least 6.5 million others are internally displaced inside Syria. Three and a half million people living in hard-to-reach areas are among 9.3 million in need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria. Hundreds of thousands of people are living in areas that have been under siege.

Being a human rights lawyer in Syria has never been easy. We have always been vulnerable to prosecution or at risk of arrest by the authorities. Over the past few years, however, the situation has become increasingly unbearable.