Reporters Without Borders is very worried about Ibrahim Hajji Al-Halabi, a citizen journalist also known as Abou Al-Tayeb Al-Souri, who was arrested at dawn on 12 May in Tel-Abyad, near the Turkish border, and was taken to the nearby northern city of Raqqah. Halabi’s fate since then is not known.

The police seized his camera, laptop and three memory cards at the time of his arrest. They also searched his home, confiscating another laptop.

Civilian detainees are often tortured and it is feared that Halabi has suffered the same fate, if not worse. Reporters Without Borders calls for his immediate release, and for the release of all the professional journalists, citizen journalists and netizens currently detained in Syria.

Born in 1981, Halabi is the opposition spokesman in the northeastern province of Al-Hasakah and a member of the Syrian Revolution General Commission. He often appeared on TV stations describing what was taking place in his region. The Union of Syrian Writers called him “the voice of the revolution in the Jezireh [northeast].”

Halabi is from the Raqqah region but he and his family were relocated to Al-Hasakah after their land was expropriated to build the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates.