Study: 394 arbitrary arrests in Syria in May

There were at least 394 cases of arbitrary arrests in Syria in May 2019, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in a report yesterday.

Twenty-one children and 14 women were among those detained, it added.

“There were also 206 cases of enforced disappearances in May,” SNHR said, noting that most of the arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances were carried out by Syrian regime forces.

“Arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances have been amongst the most common and widespread violations since the early days of the popular uprising for democracy in Syria in March 2011,” the report pointed out.

SNHR noted that some 286 people, including 14 children and nine women, were arrested by the Syrian forces and other Iran-backed militant groups.

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SNHR had also documented 52 cases of arbitrary arrests, including five children and four women, which were carried out by the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Syria’s armed opposition group, the rights organisation pointed out, had arrested 56 people, including two children and a woman.

“Since the beginning of 2019, a total of 2,124 people were arbitrarily arrested in Syria,” the group said.

Official sources at the Syrian opposition groups say that some 500,000 Syrians are being held in regime prisons.

On 30 April, SNHR reported that the Syrian regime, led by Bashar Al-Assad, had killed 14,009 people under torture since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011.