On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, marked on 30 August of each year, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) demands disclosure of the fate of all missing human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as worldwide.

Having been removed from the protection of the law, the victims of enforced disappearances are subjected to abduction, arbitrary arrest, torture, and in the worst cases ultimately to targeted assassination, having their remains disposed of stealthily. This practice denies the families, friends and communities the right to know the circumstances of the victims and may put them at risk to suffer persecution, intimidation and retaliation while searching for the truth.

Among the countries in the region where there is a widespread practice of enforced disappearance, which is tantamount to a crime against humanity according to the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, are Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Egypt.

The victims are either detained at their houses, blindfolded, handcuffed, kidnapped, and taken to an undisclosed location or arbitrarily arrested with incommunicado detention to the outside world and denied access to lawyers and family members’ calls or visits.

Syria

Syrian authorities and armed groups have employed enforced disappearances to silence the legitimate and peaceful work of political activists, protesters, journalists and lawyers. In one of the most famous cases four Syrian human rights defenders who worked at the Violations Documentation Center (VDC), Razan Zaitouneh, Samira Khalil, Nazem Hamadi and Wa’el Hamada, were kidnapped in Douma in 2013 by a group of armed and masked gunmen connected to the Army of Islam and remain disappeared to this day.

Other cases in Syria are: Anas Al-Shaghri, a human rights defender arrested in 2011, Houssam Youssef, a humanitarian activist who was arrested by the Airforce Intelligence in 2012, and journalists Abdulwahab Almullah and Rami Al-Razzouk, who were kidnapped by a group of armed men in Aleppo and Raqqa respectively in 2013. Another person subjected to enforced disappearance is Abdulhadi Sheikh Awad, director of the Syrian Democratic Institute. He was detained at the immigration office in 2013 and his whereabouts are unknown. 

Since October 2012, prominent human rights lawyer Khalil Ma’touq and his assistant Mohammed Thatha have been illegally detained after their arrest at a government security checkpoint during their commute between their houses and the office in Damascus, Syria. In 2015, they were reported by former prisoners to have been seen in government-operated detention facilities. Since then, there has been no confirmed information about their health and whereabouts nor the reasons for their kidnapping.

GCHR is concerned that the fate of those abducted human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers may have been the same as Bassel Khartabil, a software developer executed extrajudicially in 2015. He was detained in 2012, held incommunicado for around eight months, and subjected to enforced disappearance until his murder, which was only revealed in August 2017, almost two years after his death.

GCHR calls on the Syrian authorities to ensure justice and reparation for Bassel Khartabil, bringing those responsible for his execution to justice; for the release of all prisoners by the Syrian government which adopted the practice systematically after the peaceful protests in 2011; and also calls on the militia to the ongoing armed conflict the release and disclosure of the whereabouts of those held disappeared including thousands of civilians, women, and children.

Yemen

 

The ongoing conflict in Yemen impacts the human rights violations contributing to the massive murders, detentions, torture, harassment, kidnappings and enforced disappearances, such as journalist Waheed Mohammad Naji Haider Al-Sufi, who disappeared in 2015 and was reported by his family to still be missing five years later, with no news of him to this day.

The victims of enforced disappearances are mostly taken to an unknown destination by the Houthis, the de facto rulers in Sana’a, and their whereabouts remain undisclosed for years. Another civilian subjected to involuntary disappearance in Yemen since 2019 is Badr Al-Sawari, brother of journalist Yahya Al-Sawari, who escaped captivity after 56 days in several unofficial detention centres in Al-Mahrah governorate. On 04 August 2021, journalist Younis Abdulsalam Ahmed Abdulrahman was also subjected to enforced disappearance for two weeks and remains arbitrarily detained by the Security and Intelligence Services.

The war continues and thousands of Yemenis have been suffering from the abuses perpetuated by all sides, such as the Saudi-led Coalition, the Houthis and other armed groups. Therefore, GCHR calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all those held captive, and information about their location, as well as an immediate end to the murders and other violations of freedom of expression, assembly, and opinion.

Iraq

GCHR is extremely concerned about the fate of kidnapped and forcibly disappeared activists in Iraq, as illustrated in over two dozen reports about the country issued since the popular movement began in October 2019. Although it has been almost 12 years since the country ratified the Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance, hundreds of thousands of people remain missing as a result of war, intense violence, and armed conflict.

Among many others, professor Dr. Majid Ibrahim Al-Dhafiri, human rights lawyer Ali Jaseb Hattab Al-Heliji, engineer and peaceful protester Qutaiba Najm Al-Sudani, photographer Osama Muthanna Al-Tamimi, publisher and writer Mazen Latif, journalists Tawfiq Al-Tamimi, Raed Salam Dahham, and Bassem Al-Zaak, civil society activists Abdulmasih Romeo Jean Sarkis and Mohammad Hafiz Salman (Mohammad Model) have been missing since the protest period of 2019-2020. They have been taken to undisclosed locations and were all kidnapped by unknown armed groups. Since then, their whereabouts remain unidentified and families are full of anguish and despair. See more about those cases at: /news/view/2420.

Therefore, GCHR calls on the Iraqi government to enact the necessary measures to find the forcibly disappeared people, including those mentioned above, to end the impunity and bring to justice the perpetrators. Furthermore, the Iraqi authorities ought to protect the freedom of expression of all activists, writers and human rights defenders, allowing peaceful demonstrations and not punishing and targeting protesters through enforced disappearances.

Egypt

In Egypt, the occurrence of enforced disappearances does not only cover the reported and confirmed cases, yet it has become a systematic and incessant policy by Egyptian authorities to stifle the work of human rights defenders and anyone who voices a critical opinion about the government of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. They include women and children.

Civil society organisations are also targeted if they report on human rights violations or advocate for the authorities to end them, which results in arrests, travel bans, and confiscation of properties, assets and bank accounts. Families and relatives of the disappeared also suffer human rights abuses, such as judicial harassment, death threats, physical attacks, arrest and also enforced disappearance while seeking their loved ones.

In order to avoid reprisals against families, lawyers, and members of organisations that document the cases, GCHR decided not to make public their names. Nonetheless, GCHR makes recommendations that the National Security officers cease the policy of enforced disappearance and that the authorities enact proper legislation to criminalise enforced disappearance within Egyptian law.

Recommendations

On 30 August 2022, designated as the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights urges governments in the region to:

1. Guarantee that detained human rights defenders are not executed, nor tortured to obtain forced confessions, and that they are not brought to any military court, such as the Counter-Terrorism Courts;
2. Relocate all prisoners to known places of detention, allowing visits and calls from their families, ensuring the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment;
3. Release all human rights defenders, including those subjected to enforced disappearances based upon their peaceful work and activism, guaranteeing their right to liberty, security and an effective remedy, including reparation and compensation;
4. Provide protection and assistance to all parties involved in the search for victims of enforced disappearance, especially families, ensuring them the right to know the truth regarding the circumstances of the disappearance without reprisals and persecution;
5. Guarantee accountability and justice for the survivors, released persons, and families of deceased victims and their relatives, including by bringing to trial the suspected perpetrators, in a fair trial in line with judicial guarantees, to assure that such a crime does not happen any longer;
6. For the Syrian, Yemeni and Egyptian authorities, ratify, without reservation, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and implement its recommendations under their domestic legislation;
7. For the Iraqi authorities, effectively implement the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in the country and fully implement the recommendations of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances in 2015-20, while conducting thorough investigations to end impunity for this crime and cease fully the practice of depriving thousands of forcibly disappeared people of their liberty and
8. Accept requests by the UN Committee and Working Group on Enforced Disappearances to visit and carry out investigations on behalf of victims of enforced disappearances.