An Urgent Call for the Immediate Release of Three Peaceful Activists

Syria..... A Systematic Targeting of Civil Society Activists.

 

On the fifth of March,the Syrian regime’s satellite channel broadcastin "The Watchful Eye al-Ain al-Sahira" Program what it claimed to be the confessions of one of the "terrorist gangs" that were “fabricating misleading news” to be displayed on what it called “the Tendentious Channels”. The program, which was broadcast from the Headquarter of the Criminal Security in Bab Mosala, Damascus, interviewed a number of civil activists: Mariam Hayed, a volunteer at the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and a student of Education at Damascus University, who was born in Atarib, Aleppo in 1991, Shyar Khalil, a journalist and a student of Journalism at Damascus University, who was born in Afrin, Aleppo in 1985 and Hazem Waked, a postgraduate student of Fine Arts, who was born in Swaidaa in 1988.

 

The detainees’ kin and the activists they were close to- with whom VDC in Syria has contacted- confirmed that they had received information from the Criminal Security Branch saying that the detainees were exposed to beatings and torture and were forced to make these fabricated confessions especially Mariam Hayed, who had never engaged in the revolution peaceful activities. Rather, her activity was limited to providing psychosocial support for children. Nevertheless, as she coincidentally was in the house that was stormed, she was detained with activist Hazem Waked.

 

As for Shyar Khalil, he is a media activist who was arrested with a number of other activists from Saruja Cafe in April 2013 by Palestine Branch, which is a subsidiary of the Military Intelligence Division. He was tortured severely and systematically by the members of that branch, then, three months after, he was transferred to Adra Central Prison. However, during the interview, he was forced to say that he went to the Criminal Security Branch by himself after the branch authorities asked him to in spite of the fact that they brought him from Adra Central Prison themselves.

The aforementioned sources added that there are serious concerns about the life of activist Mehran AbdulAziz Iyoon - from Duma, Damascus – whose name was referred to as an “Islamic extremist" who wants to establish a caliphate state. Mahran have been arrested - for the second time - with his brother, Yasser, on 7 -1-2014 during their displacement from the city of Adra al-Omalia. It is worth mentioning that their father as well has been detained by regime forces for a year and a half although he holds no extreme thoughts at all, according to the sources.

 

This is not the first time when the criminal Syrian regime’s media forces detainees to appear on television to give such fabricated confessions, as if all the torture and ill-treatment the detainees are being exposed to in the regime’s detention centers are not enough that they are being used to spread these lies and propaganda.

 

As VDC in Syria deplores and condemns these meager plays that the regime’s channels broadcast surpassing all moral and humanitarian limits, it demands -at the same time- the immediate release of the three activists, and holds the Syrian regime fully responsible for their safety and lives, especially the detainees Mehran Iyoon and Yasser Iyoon, It also calls on all international organizations and bodies to intervene to protect the detainees in question and immediately release them as well as other tens of thousands of detainees in the prisons of the Syrian regime.

 

Violation Documentation Center in Syria

March 2014

-------------------------------------------------------------------
لأية ملاحظات أو أسئلة يمكن التواصل معنا عبر بريدنا الالكتروني
editor@vdc-sy.info

للاطلاع على تقاريرنا السابقة باللغة العربية
http://www.vdc-sy.org/index.php/ar/reports

للاطلاع على تقاريرنا السابقة باللغة الإنكليزية
http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/reports/