AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
15 August 2011
AI Index: PRE01/401/2011
Young Syrian activists held amid widespread repression
At least three young human rights activists who helped to
organize peaceful protests in and near Damascus are being held incommunicado in
unknown locations after their recent arrest, while fears are growing for a
fourth who has gone missing.
The news of the activists’ plight comes amid reports that
some 25 people have been killed since yesterday in the port city of Latakia,
where Syrian tanks and ships reportedly continue to shell residential areas in
an attempt to quell protests.
Across Syria, more than 1,700 people have been killed since
mass protests began in mid-March, according to a list of names compiled by
Amnesty International.
“The Syrian authorities must immediately reveal the
whereabouts of any activists arrested in connection with the ongoing pro-reform
protests and give them access to their families and lawyers,” said Philip
Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa
Programme.
“If they are being held solely for their involvement in
peaceful protests, the authorities have no basis to continue holding them, and
they must be released immediately and unconditionally as they would be
prisoners of conscience. The Syrian authorities must also investigate reports
of torture and other ill-treatment in detention and bring those responsible to
justice.”
Sources have told Amnesty International that two of the
activists – Islam al-Dabbas and Majd al-Din Kholani, both of whom are students
from Daraya, south-west of Damascus – had been beaten severely following their
arrest by Air Force Security on 22 July and 8 August, respectively.
According to human rights activists, Air Force Security
oversees arrests in Daraya. Along with the other Syrian intelligence services,
it regularly detains people suspected of opposing the government and holds them
incommunicado for lengthy periods in detention centres that are notorious for
torture and other ill-treatment.
Women’s rights activist Hanadi Zahlout was arrested at a
café in Damascus on 4 August. Detainees recently released from the Political
Security branch in Damascus said they had seen her in detention there, and that
she had made a confession after being forced to watch her friend being
tortured.
Damascus-based activist and film producer Shadi Abu Fakher
was last heard from on 23 July when he phoned a friend he was meeting that day
to say he was just two minutes away.
Family members of the detained activists have been too
afraid to ask authorities for details of their whereabouts, sources have told
Amnesty International, which fears they may have been subjected to enforced
disappearance.
All four activists had helped to organize peaceful
pro-reform demonstrations in and near the capital. Islam al-Dabbas in
particular was well-known for presenting water bottles with flowers to the army
when they attempted to attack protesters in Daraya.
Since the beginning of popular protests in mid-March, the
Syrian security forces have arrested thousands of people in cities across the
country. Amnesty International has received numerous accounts of detainees
being tortured and otherwise ill-treated, with some dying in custody as a
result.
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the UN
Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the Prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court (ICC), based on evidence of crimes against
humanity.