In the week before his arrest, he was in regular contact from Damascus with his family in Oslo, however the phone calls stopped on Wedneday, 5 January 2011.

According to sources, Mr Alnawathy had previously been arrested in Israel on three separate occasions. In addition to his work as an author and a journalist, he is the founder of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate and the Vice-chairman of the International Union for Electronic Press.

On 3 February 2011, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances requesting its intervention with Syrian authorities to release Mr Alnawathy or to put him under the protection of law. Alkarama sent also communications to the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and the protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression as well as the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.

Mr Moheeb Alnawathy's enforced disappearance serves only to reinforce the custom of respression in Syria. Alkarama calls on Syria to abolish its State of Emergency, which has plagued the country with human rights violations for more than forty years.