Looking for the Disappeared
SMN 1, May 2, 2010
A Facebook group is seeking to expose the highly sensitive issue of dissidents who went missing in the 1970s and 1980s in Syria.
The group said it wanted to break the silence about all those who disappeared following their arrests or were seized by authorities between 1970 and 1989, a period it referred to by some as “the years of fear”.
During that period, the Syrian regime cracked down heavily on secular and Islamist dissidents, executing some and sending many to jail for years. The fate of some who were imprisoned remains unknown.
Called “Syrian Enforced Disappearances: Break the Silence”, the group wrote on its description page, “The past never dies”. No information about the creators of this group has been published because of the sensitivity of the issue and for fear of action by the authorities.
The group said that it was important to lift the veil around this issue in order to start a process of real national reconciliation and present the families of the disappeared with information on the fate of their loved ones.
It said that according to Amnesty International and other organisations, 17,000 people had disappeared in Syria, mostly Islamists belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
The group argued that the lack of accountability had allowed the government to propagate a culture of fear among Syrians and ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands of people by depriving them of their loved ones.
The administrator of the group, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told SMN by email that it was created by the National Committee of the Disappeared in Syria, which was established in 2000 as an underground movement after the death of president Hafez al-Assad.
He said he hoped the group would encourage the families of the disappeared to participate in the discussions online without fear because of the anonymous cover offered by the internet.
The administrator said that he was pleased to see how quickly the number of members had grown to reach more than 340 in the first three weeks, including opponents in Syria and abroad.
He said that the group started collecting stories about cases of disappeared people and will publish them soon in order to “keep the Syrian memory alive”.
Several documents about cases of enforced disappearances in Syria, including ones drafted by the United Nations, were posted on the group’s page.
Articles and research papers on the phenomenon of extra-judicial action have also been posted.
Some of these documents say that in the 1980s kangaroo courts were ordering the execution of some prisoners of conscience, away from the eyes of families or lawyers. The existence of these courts has never been officially recognised.
The creator called on those interested in the group’s cause to contribute by posting legal opinions and information as well as drawings or poems that might help raise awareness of the topic of the disappeared and launch a public debate around it.
