“Enforced disappearance” a devastating weapon to humanity
On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance, HRG stated that enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity that destroys human and families’ lives as well as justice and the families of the disappeared live in great suffering.
The Syrian regime and the parties to the conflict are still relentlessly abduct their critics and spreading terror among the target groups in order to silence their voices or eliminate their voices and punish them.
HRG and its field team are still documenting more disappearances, as the numbers documented by the organization reached 3,600 cases of enforced disappearance by the date of writing this statement by all parties, and in cooperation with its partners, the International Committee for Missing Persons.
The organization has launched campaigns to support the victims of more than 370 cases of enforced disappearance, and expresses its intention to continue to exert pressure on all parties, in cooperation with its partners, the International Commission for Missing Persons, to reveal the fate and whereabouts of all the missing.
On this occasion, Suleiman Issa, Executive Director of HRG, said:
“The practice of enforced disappearance has become commonplace since the beginning of the conflict in Syria and has become systematic, widespread and elevates crimes against humanity that are not subject to statute of limitations.” “Issa” called on the parties to the conflict not to use enforced disappearance as a weapon of oppression and terror of opinion.
In this regard, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said that nearly a hundred thousand cases of enforced disappearance in Syria since 2011 until today, 85% of them disappeared at the hands of the Syrian regime and the rest at the hands of extremist organizations, opposition factions and the Syrian Democratic Forces They added that hardly a day would pass in which a person was arrested by the Syrian regime and without a judicial warrant when the victim passed a checkpoint or through raids. The detainee is subjected to torture from the first moment and is denied access to his family and lawyer, and after a while he turns into an enforced disappeared who is deprived of all his rights to end up as a number.
For its part, the United Nations said today, Sunday, that enforced disappearance is more than just a violation of human rights against an individual, as it has often been used as a strategy to spread terror in the entire society.
The Secretary-General said that impunity doubles the severity of suffering and pain, and that families and societies have the right, under international human rights law, to know the truth about what happened. I call on Member States to fulfill this responsibility.
Mr. António Guterres stated that states have an obligation, with the assistance of international human rights mechanisms, to strengthen their efforts to prevent enforced disappearances, search for victims and increase assistance to victims and their relatives. “It is equally important to continue to conduct credible and impartial judicial investigations”.
The use of enforced disappearance as a weapon of oppression generates an impact not only on the disappeared, but on his family and the surrounding community, due to the disappearance of the sole breadwinner for the family, and the impact of the financial situation of the disappeared’s family and its deterioration, as well as on society as it is used as a strategy to spread terror among people, so the feeling of insecurity and fear does not It only affects the family of the forcibly disappeared or his relatives, but extends it to all of society.
Finally, and in view of the widespread and systematic practice of enforced disappearance in the country, HRG call on the Syrian authorities to respect their obligations under international law and put an end to this gross violation of human rights by opening investigations into all reported cases of disappearances, following up on the perpetrators of these crimes and prosecuting them, compensating the victims and their families and allowing the staff of nations The United Nations visits prisons and conducts independent investigations, and measures to achieve truth and justice in cases of enforced disappearance should be parallel and go hand in hand. There is no truth without justice or justice without the truth, and it also calls on them to sign the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and accept the committee’s jurisdiction to consider in individual complaints.
