Repeated arrests and detentions

On 17 December 2012, Ali Al Shahibi's family tried to contact him, without any success. They later learned through informal channels that he had been arrested by forces of the Military Intelligence's Palestine branch at a checkpoint between the Al Zahra District and Al Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Damascus. After Alkarama filed his case with the WGEID, the Syrian authorities provided information according to which Al Shihabi "was arrested by the competent authorities on 11 August 2013 and released on 17 August 2013," dates that are severely misleading as the 60-year-old married father disappeared eight months earlier, and is still missing.

Moreover, this was not the first time that Al Shihabi has been arrested and detained because of his political writings and affiliations with the Communist Labour Party of Syria. To name but one such instance, on 9 October 2006, Al Shihabi was arrested and brought before the Public Prosecutor on the charge of "illegally establishing a political party."

On 17 December 2015 − three years exactly after Al Shahibi was arrested − a campaign was launched to urge the Syrian authorities to disclose his whereabouts or, at the very least, acknowledge his arrest. His family informs that "every time we inquire about his whereabouts, the authorities deny his arrest. The only confirmation we have received is the Syrian authorities' reply to the WGEID. Being a Palestinian citizen living in Syria makes him particularly vulnerable, as less people are concerned about his fate."

Enforced disappearances as a tool of terror

Al Shihabi's disappearance falls into a country-wide pattern of disappearances of civilians, documented by Alkarama on numerous occasions, as well as by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI Syria). While enforced disappearances were first recorded in 2011, they have since then been used systematically by governmental forces against dissident voices, including human rights defenders and lawyers. As documented by the CoI Syria in their 2015 report, detainees are arrested on the basis of vaguely defined terrorism-related offenses that include distributing written materials or information.

Not only does the practice of enforced disappearance constitute a severe violation of civil and political rights, but it also results in severe economic and social deprivation for the families of the disappeared since victims of such disappearances are mostly adult male civilians. Left behind without a bread-winner, the families are experiencing severe economic and social damage.

Still fearing for his life, as well as his mental and physical integrity, three years after his disappearance, Alkarama calls upon the Syrian authorities to immediately release Ali Al Shihabi or, at the very least, to put him under the protection of the law by disclosing his whereabouts and allowing his family to visit him without restriction.

For more information or an interview, please contact the media team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (Dir: +41 22 734 1008).