Alkarama sent a communication to the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, asking it to intercede with the Syrian authorities so that Mr Khlioui be released or placed under the protection of the law.

Nabil Khlioui, born in 1958, lives with his family in the district of Deir al-Zour north-east of the Damascus. He is employed as an electrician in a telecommunications company.

Mr Khlioui's family reported that on the night of 14 August 2008 several officers from the military intelligence services, dressed in civilian clothing and equipped with assault rifles, entered his home and arrested Mr Khlioui while he was sleeping. They also confiscated his mobile phone.

Since his arrest, Mr Khlioui's family has received no information about him and has been unable to make a complaint. The authorities did not disclose where he is being detained nor did they reveal the reasons for his arrest.

His family eventually learned through unofficial sources that Mr Khlioui was held for the first two weeks in a prison in Deir al-Zour before being transferred to the section known as "Palestine" in the Damascus prison. In April 2009, the family learned that he was apparently imprisoned from October 2008 to January 2009.

It would appear that he is suffering from intense back pains, as a result of torture, and can neither stand nor walk. Other sources have informed the family that he is no longer in the Palestine section of the prison.

The arrest and disappearance of Mr Khlioui is not an isolated case. In fact, a campaign of arrests, in the region of Deir al-Zour, of people suspected of links with Islamists was carried out in 2008 and a dozen people were arrested including Mr Khlioui.

Alkarama is reminded that that Syria has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 21 April 1969 and the Convention against Torture on 19 August 2004. The initial report on Syria will be considered by the Committee against Torture during its 44th session from 26 April to 14 May 2010.