The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Abdulaziz Al-Khair detention ten years on | SOHR calls for disclosing the fate of tens of thousands of detainees and forcibly displaced people in regime prisons

The prominent Syrian regime opponent, Abdulaziz Al-Khair, was arrested with two other opponents, Maher Al-Tahan and Iyas Ayyash, by regime intelligence service on September 20, 2012, near Damascus international airport, shortly after having arrived in Syria from the People’s Republic of China where he represented the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change.

 

For ten years, the prominent defender of human rights Abdulaziz Al-Khair, who is from Al-Qardaha, the hometown of the Syrian regime’s president Bashar Al-Assad, has been robbed of his freedom, just like tens of thousands of detainees and forcibly disappeared individuals, such as Khalil Ma’touq, Faten Rajab, Hussein Iso and tens of intellectuals and defenders of freedom of opinion, at a time when so many have died under torture in regime prisons and security centres.

 

We, at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), demand the disclosure of the fate of tens of thousands of detainees in regime prison and call upon the international community, relevant international courts and all international authorities to intensify their efforts to disclose the fate of Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Khair and work on getting him and all detainees free immediately and to exert pressure on the Syrian regime to identify the places where the remains of thousands of torture victims.

 

We also call upon the international courts to exert diligent efforts to bring to justice criminals, perpetrators of violations and all those who aided and abetted the killing of Syrians, whose guilt was their calls for freedom, democracy, justice and equality and the toppling of the tyrannical regime, in order to ensure a fair trial.

 

It is worth noting the latest arrest of Abdulaziz Al-Khair, which took place ten years ago, was not the first of its kind, as he had been detained for nearly 14 years for opposing Hafez Al-Assad’s regime, where he was released in 2005.