at the Tal Amri checkpoint located on Salamiyeh road in Homs, by members of the Air Force Intelligence as he was going to the hospital for a heart surgery. In late April 2016, his mother was allowed to visit him in Sednaya Prison near Damascus, but Al Ashkar looked very weak due to the torture he was subjected to. After the visit, the family was not allowed to visit him anymore and was not provided with any information about his fate. Al Ashkar is since disappeared again and his family fears for his life as he suffers from a heart condition.

In recent years, checkpoints have become a tool for the Syrian authorities to create a climate of fear in the country. Individuals passing checkpoints are systematically thoroughly scrutinised by the security services and, if perceived as supporting the opposition, are arrested and brought to unknown places of detention, their families being denied any information on their fate and whereabouts. Alkarama has documented numerous cases of enforced disappearances following arrests at checkpoints that follow the same pattern.

"We are very concerned over Al Ashkar's fate since he is probably still detained in Sednaya prison, a detention centre under the control of the Military Police that is notorious for the practice of torture and the dire conditions of detention," says Ines Osman, Legal Coordinator at Alkarama. "Medical care for sick or injured prisoners is never provided and there has been numerous accounts of detainees being tortured when they were asking for medical help."

In the light of the above elements, Alkarama expressed grave concern over the fate of Al Ashkar and the serious violations of his basic rights to the WGEID. We therefore solicited the urgent intervention of the WGEID with the Syrian authorities to ensure that his relatives be immediately informed of his fate and whereabouts and that he is released or at least immediately placed under the protection of the law.

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