{"id":244,"date":"2011-05-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/?p=244","title":{"rendered":"Syria: Lift the Siege of Daraa, Nationwide Campaign of Arrests Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nFor Immediate Release<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nSyria: Lift the Siege of Daraa, Nationwide Campaign of
\nArrests Continues<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/strong>(New York, May 6, 2011) – Syria’s government should immediately lift
\nits 10-day siege of the southern town of Daraa and allow movement in and out of
\nthe city, including access for independent observers, Human Rights Watch said
\ntoday. Syria’s security forces should also immediately stop the nationwide
\ncampaign of arbitrary arrests against protesters and activists, Human Rights
\nWatch said. <\/p>\n


\n <\/strong>Syria’s army surrounded Daraa on April 25, 2011, cutting electricity, phone
\n lines, and internet services, and preventing any movement into and out of the
\n city, including for humanitarian supplies of medicines and food. Agence France-Presse
\n and Syrian TV reported on May 5 that the army had started to withdraw from
\n Daraa. However, a Daraa resident reached by Human Rights Watch on a satellite
\n phone indicated that the military was still restricting movement into the town,
\nincluding the import of essential food and medicine items. <\/p>\n


\n <\/strong>“The Syrian government is collectively punishing the residents of Daraa
\n because some demonstrators from the town dared protest against it,” said Sarah
\n Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “It would appear that
\n the government has a lot to hide, because it’s refusing to let Daraa residents
\n out or independent observers in.”
\n <\/strong>The siege violates Syria’s obligations, as a party to the International
\n Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to respect fundamental rights
\n and the rules of law guaranteed in the treaty. Even during a genuine emergency,
\n any restrictions on rights must be strictly limited and justified by the
\n exigencies of the actual situation, conditions that Syria has not met.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Daraa
\n <\/strong>Daraa has suffered the brunt of the Syrian authorities’ violent crackdown against
\n anti-government protests. Syrian human rights groups have issued a list
\n containing the names of more than 350 individuals who have died in the city.
\n Access to information about the situation inside Daraa became much harder after
\n the army imposed a full siege in the early hours of April 25. One resident of a
\n nearby village told Human Rights Watch on May 3 that:\n<\/p>\n

\nThe borders of the city are completely blocked off. No one
\ncan leave or enter – no medicine, flour, gas, milk, or electricity. Nothing. We
\nare particularly worried about the old part of town, Daraa al-Balad, which has
\nbeen particularly hit hard. We keep hearing reports of the army breaking into
\nhomes and shops stealing belongings and damaging properties.\n<\/p>\n

\nA man who usually lives in Daraa but happened to be outside
\nthe town when the government imposed its siege told Human Rights Watch that he
\nstayed in the nearby village of al-Naima for three days before fleeing to
\nJordan:\n<\/p>\n

\nI was staying two kilometers outside of Daraa but could not
\nmake my way back to the town. The military deployed snipers and heavy machine
\nguns all around the city. They fired on anyone approaching. I spent three days
\nin al-Naima and heard the sound of heavy gunfire from inside the town the whole
\ntime. The gunfire would be separated by periods of silence ranging from half an
\nhour to three hours, followed by a minute or two of intense shooting.\n<\/p>\n

\nDuring his time in al-Naima he met a Daraa resident who had
\nmanaged to escape the siege by crossing through the fields at night. The man
\nwho escaped reported that the city had no food, water, or medical supplies
\ncoming in and that residents had resorted to storing corpses in food
\nrefrigerators running on diesel, which was in limited supply.\n<\/p>\n

Another Daraa resident in Jordan at the time of the siege said that he had been
\n unable for more than 10 days to contact his mother and sister who were in
\n Daraa. “My mother is old and needs her daily medication. Who will help her? I
\n can’t reach her to know how she is coping.”
\n On May 1, a Syrian military source told the state news agency, SANA, that
\n Syrian army units and security forces had killed 10 “terrorists” in Daraa and
\n arrested 499 others. A resident from a neighboring village said that he contacted
\n some people inside Daraa who told him that security forces held detainees in
\n the al-Omari mosque in Daraa and later transferred them to Damascus.\n<\/p>\n

“Even if the Syrian army is truly ‘hunting terrorists’, that is no reason to
\n prevent the town’s residents from leaving and to deny old women their
\n medication,” Whitson said. “Syria has protested repeatedly about Israel’s
\n closure of Gaza, but it’s doing the same to Daraa’s residents.”\n<\/p>\n

Nation-wide campaign of detentions <\/strong>
\n Syrian authorities have also launched a nationwide campaign of arrests of activists
\n and protesters, including many women. In some cases, security forces have
\n detained family members of activists, apparently to put pressure on them to
\n cease their activities. Most arrests, if not all, appear to be arbitrary and in
\n violation of international law. \n<\/p>\n

On April 30, security forces surrounded the house of political activist Wael
\n Hamadeh in Damascus. Hamadeh was away from his home so security forces detained
\n his brother, Abdel Rahman Hamadeh, 20, instead. Razan Zeitouneh, the wife of
\n Wael and a human rights activist herself, described the situation: <\/p>\n

\nThe security forces showed up at the house. Wael and I were
\nsomewhere else. They kept shouting at the door telling Abdel Rahman that they
\nwanted to speak to Wael. They made Abdel Rahman call Wael to ask him to come to
\nthe house. Sensing a trap, Wael did not go. So the security forces took Abdel
\nRahman instead even though he had nothing to do with the protests. We have not
\nheard from him since.\n<\/p>\n

\nHuman Rights Watch also received information from Syrian
\nhuman rights groups about two other cases where security forces detained family
\nmembers instead of the intended targets as a way to pressure activists to turn
\nthemselves in. On April 27, security forces detained Farouk al-Basle, the son
\nof political activist Bassam al-Basle, when they failed to find Bassam al-Basle
\nat his house, according to a Damascus-based lawyer. The lawyer also told Human
\nRights Watch that on April 30, security forces went to the Harasta house of
\nMahmoud Mudallal, a political activist<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n