{"id":573,"date":"2012-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T00:00:00","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=573","title":{"rendered":"Mother and children held incommunicado"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>URGENT ACTION <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A Syrian family, including two young children and a  pregnant woman, have been held incommunicado since 15 May at the Air Force  Intelligence branch in al-Mezzeh, Damascus. They appear to be prisoners of  conscience, held in an attempt to place pressure on a wanted family member.  They may be at risk of torture and ill-treatment. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mahmoud Hamada<\/strong>, aged 10 and <strong>Osama Hamada<\/strong>, aged  8, were arrested from their home in Aqraba, in the suburbs of Damascus on 15  May 2012, along with their mother <strong>Malika al-Khateeb<\/strong> who is six months  pregnant. Five other family members present in the house at the time were also  arrested: they are the children&rsquo;s grandfather <strong>Mahmoud Rida Hamada<\/strong>;  grandmother <strong>Samiya al-Jad<\/strong>; uncle <strong>Mohamed Hamada<\/strong>; aunt <strong>Noor  al-Habyan;<\/strong> and cousin <strong>Adam Hamada,<\/strong> aged 3.<\/p>\n<p>Following the arrests, several of the town&rsquo;s elders went to  ask for their release at the Air Force Intelligence branch in al-Mezzeh  neighbourhood of Damascus, but were told the family would only be released if  Malika al-Khateeb&rsquo;s husband, Said Mahmoud Hamada, hands himself in to the  authorities. Said Mahmoud Hamada is reportedly accused by the Syrian  authorities of &ldquo;belonging to a terrorist group&rdquo;, and is currently in hiding. On  22 May, Adam Hamada was released and collected from the Air Force Intelligence  branch by his maternal grandmother and uncle. <\/p>\n<p>On the basis of the available evidence, Amnesty  International believes that the detained family are prisoners of conscience,  held solely because of their relation to Said Mahmoud Hamada. There are further  concerns for the well-being of Malika al-Khateeb as she is six months pregnant  and Samiya al-Jad, who needs regular medication as she suffers from diabetes  and high blood pressure. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Please write immediately in English, Arabic or your own  language: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span dir=\"ltr\"> <\/span>Expressing concern that  Malika al-Khateeb, Mahmoud Hamada, Osama Hamada, Mahmoud Rida Hamada, Samiya  al-Jad, Mohamed Hamada, and Noor al-Habyan appear to be prisoners of conscience  arrested solely for their relation to Said Mahmoud Hamada; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span dir=\"ltr\"> <\/span>Calling for them to be  released immediately and unconditionally;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span dir=\"ltr\"> <\/span>Urging the authorities to  ensure that, for as long as they are in detention, they are protected from  torture and other ill-treatment, allowed immediate contact with their family  and a lawyer of their choice, and provided with any medical care they require.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 13 JULY 2012 TO:<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>  President <br \/>\n  Bashar al-Assad <br \/>\n  Presidential Palace, al-Rashid Street <br \/>\n  Damascus, \u00a0Syrian Arab Republic <br \/>\n  Fax: +963 11 332 3410 (keep trying) <br \/>\n  <strong>Salutation: Your Excellency <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Minister of Interior <br \/>\n  His Excellency Major General Mohamad Ibrahim al-Shaar,  Ministry of Interior, &lsquo;Abd al-Rahman Shahbandar Street <br \/>\n  Damascus, \u00a0Syrian Arab Republic <br \/>\n  Fax: +963 11 211 9578 (keep trying) <br \/>\n  <strong>Salutation: Your Excellency <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Minister of Foreign Affairs <br \/>\n  Walid al-Mu&rsquo;allim <br \/>\n  Ministry of Foreign Affairs <br \/>\n  al-Rashid Street <br \/>\n  Damascus, \u00a0Syrian Arab Republic <br \/>\n  Fax: +963 11 214 6253 (keep trying) <br \/>\n  <strong>Salutation: Your Excellency<\/strong><strong> <\/strong>\u00a0<br \/>\n  <strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<br \/>\n  <strong>Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited  to your country. Please insert local diplomatic addresses below: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Name Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Fax Fax number Email  Email address Salutation Salutation <br \/>\n  Please check with your section office if sending appeals  after the above date. <\/p>\n<p>  <strong>URGENT ACTION<\/strong> MOTHER AND CHILDREN HELD INCOMMUNICADO <br \/>\n  <strong>Additional Information<\/strong><br \/>\n  On 15 May 2012, security forces reportedly raided Said  Mahmoud Hamada&rsquo;s workshop, causing him to flee from his home and go into  hiding. His eight relatives were arrested later that day when security forces  raided their home in search of Said Mahmoud Hamada. An unofficial source  reportedly informed the town&rsquo;s elders that the family are being pressured to  appear on state-TV and &lsquo;confess&rsquo; that Said Mahmoud Hamada is a member of  al-Qaeda and is responsible for a bombing in the al-Qazaz neighbourhood of  Damascus on 10 May 2012. <\/p>\n<p>Pro-reform demonstrations began sporadically in February  2011 but became larger and more frequent after the first killings of  demonstrators the following month. Initially largely peaceful, the Syrian  authorities responded in the most brutal manner in their efforts to suppress  them. In the year since then, although peaceful demonstrations have continued,  the unrest has turned increasingly violent, with armed opposition groups, many  loosely under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) carrying out attacks  mainly against Syrian security forces. Abuses by opposition forces have also  been reported including torture or killing of captured members of the army and  security forces, including the pro-government gangs known as <em>shabiha<\/em> and  perceived supporters of the government and suspected informers. Amnesty  International has obtained the names of more than 9,900 people reported to have  died or been killed in relation to the unrest since mid-March 2011. <\/p>\n<p>Thousands of suspected opponents of the Syrian government  have been arrested since protests broke out and many, if not most, are believed  to have been tortured and otherwise ill-treated. Amnesty International has the  names of more than 380 people reported to have died in custody in this period  and has documented many cases of torture or other ill-treatment. For further  information about torture and other ill-treatment of detainees in Syria, see &ldquo;I  wanted to die&rdquo;: Syria&rsquo;s torture survivors speak out <br \/>\n  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/library\/info\/MDE24\/016\/2012\/en\">http:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/library\/info\/MDE24\/016\/2012\/en<\/a>.  Among those who have died in custody are at least 18 children, some as young as  13 years old. The bodies of some of these children bore marks of injuries which  indicated they may have been subjected to torture For further information,  please see <em>Syria: Deadly detention: Deaths in custody amid popular protest  in Syria<\/em>, Index: MDE 24\/035\/2011, 31 August 2011 (<a href=\"http:\/\/amnesty.org\/en\/library\/info\/MDE24\/035\/2011\/en\">http:\/\/amnesty.org\/en\/library\/info\/MDE24\/035\/2011\/en<\/a>). <\/p>\n<p>Amnesty International has also received many reports of  people apparently subjected to enforced disappearance, where state officials  have failed to provide their families with any information on the fate of these  people, most of whom are believed to have been arrested by the security forces.  Despite the Syrian government&rsquo;s acceptance on 27 March 2012 of the six-point  plan drawn up by the Joint Special Envoy for the United Nations and the Arab  League on Syria, Kofi Annan, and the ceasefire agreement of 12 April, Amnesty  International has continued to receive reports of unlawful killings, arrests  and continuing detention of people in conditions amounting to enforced  disappearance. <\/p>\n<p>Since April 2011, Amnesty International has documented  systematic and widespread human rights violations which amount to crimes  against humanity, and has called for the situation in Syria to be referred to  the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as an international  arms embargo on Syria, and an assets freeze on President Bashar al-Assad and  his close associates. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Go to the interactive Eyes on Syria map  (www.eyesonsyria.org) to see where human rights violations are being committed  in Syria, and Amnesty International&#8217;s global activism to seek justice.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Name: Malika al-Khateeb, Mahmoud Hamada, Osama Hamada,  Mahmoud Rida Hamada, Samiya al-Jad, Mohamed Hamada, and Noor al-Habyan Gender m\/f: Mahmoud Hamada,  Osama Hamada, Mahmoud Rida Hamada and Mohamed Hamada are male; Malika  al-Khateeb, Samiya al-Jad and Noor al-Habyan are female. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amnesty International, URGENT ACTION<\/p>\n<p>01 June 2012<\/p>\n<p>A Syrian family, including two young children and a pregnant woman, have been held incommunicado since 15 May at the Air Force Intelligence branch in al-Mezzeh, Damascus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}