NOVANEWS
By: Laith al-Khatib
The case of detainees remains one of the most complicated issues in the Syrian crisis due to the variation of cases that include prisoners from armed groups, political detainees, and civilians detained in error. The latest presidential general amnesty law sheds new light on this issue.
Damascus countryside– Along with prisoners from opposition groups, several types of detainees languish in Syrian prisons. Some of them are prisoners of conscience and political detainees. However, the numbers of civilians in jail “by mistake” is larger by orders of magnitude. They were detained for being at the wrong place in the raging war.
In the countryside around Damascus, suspicion alone is enough to land someone in detention. The wrong family name, a torn identification card, belonging to a certain region, a wrongful accusation, or several other minor reasons could lead to an arrest.
Some detainees are only kept for a few hours. But many are spending months in jail, due to the manner in which the authorities are dealing with the issue. Ali Nasser (pseudonym), a worker in the industrial zone in south Reef Damascus was arrested six times; the longest was for a few days. “In most of the cases, I was arrested due to my last name,” he said. “Some of my relatives are fighters.”
“Although my name is not on the arrest lists, my family name was enough to get me arrested at every new checkpoint,” he added with a smile. “All the checkpoints know me by now. The last four times, soldiers from other checkpoints intervened to get me released.”But many of Ali’s colleagues were not that lucky. “Those whose families cannot get them released before being transferred to one of the headquarters are much less likely to be released,” he explained. “Being transferred there means the charge is stuck and there is no escape from prison and the courts.”
The question of detainees emerged as a key issue in the various reconciliations taking place in the regions around the capital, Damascus. Sharif Harees is an activist working on reconciliation in the town of al-Tal (north of the city) described the situation to Al-Akhbar. “Reconciliation committees presented lists of detainees to the authorities and, in most cases, more than 90 percent were released. Those who were involved in major crimes, such as murder or contacts with foreign intelligence, remained in detention,” he said.
“But why did they treat innocent people on equal footing with the killers before the settlement? Why does the issue require such enormous efforts from the families and interventions from state leaders and political parties to be solved?” Harees wondered.
However, the problem has not been solved, despite the several general amnesty decrees against criminals and offenders since the beginning of the crisis. “The problem of arbitrary arrests cancelled out the effects of all the decrees,” lawyer Moaz Sallouta, an expert in cases involving terrorism, told Al-Akhbar. “We kept receiving similar cases throughout our work on releasing detainees.”
“Most of the cases in our court are simple and are resolved as soon as they reach a judge, such as similarity of names, loss of identification card, or accusations by questionable sides without evidence,” he explained. However, the major difficulties are during the pretrial phase. “Sometimes people are arrested for 40 days or more.” Even worse is “the corruption of some of the court employees, who manipulate the dates of the trials, based on connections or bribes.”
Some expert believe the latest general amnesty (Decree No.22 of 2014) issued on June 9, had a deep impact on the complicated question of detainees. Justice Louai Amash describes the amnesty decree as “the most comprehensive in the history of the Syrian Arab Republic.” Its text only excluded charges “which the Syrians would not forgive, such as espionage and high treason, in addition to severe moral crimes related to deviance and contravening nature.”The decree includes “military deserters who fled inside or outside [the country] and the foreigners who came to Syria to carry out terrorist operations, on the condition that they turn themselves in a period not exceeding one month from the date of issuing the decree.”
Reef Damascus’ public prosecutor Ahmad al-Sayyid maintains that the Justice Ministry “is preparing a list of names covered by the decree. It will be sent to the prisons and detention centers for their release.” So far, 274 inmates from Damascus central prison were released under the decree.
On the other side, some believe the decree remains vague in some respects, especially for detainees at the security branches who have not yet been transferred to the prisons or courts. “Implementation is what’s more important,” says the father of one of the detainees. “My son was arrested two weeks ago and we still don’t know where he is. Our hopes were raised by the amnesty, but we cannot put his name on the list since we don’t know where he is.”
