In northern Syria, civil organizations have launched an initiative titled “No for Arbitrary Detention and Arrest” to face the phenomenon of detention in the opposition-held Syrian areas.

In 28th of December, Enab Baladi’s reporter in Aleppo said that Aleppo Free Lawyers Syndicate has organized this initiative in the city of Atarib in rural Aleppo with the participation of lawyers’ syndicates in Syria, a number of unions and civil community organizations.

The initiative emphasized the need “to face injustice and protect citizens’ freedom, as well as eliminating the arbitrary detention and arrest phenomenon and preserving the popular incubator” in the opposition-held Syrian areas.

In the few past months, the areas in northern Syria, which are held by the Syrian opposition factions, have witnessed cases of detention of both military and civilian components, implemented by the active military factions in the area.

In an interview with Enab Baladi, lawyer Hamidi al-Haj Hamidi, the Bâtonnier of Aleppo’s free lawyers, said that “due to the proliferation of arbitrary arrests without warrants in the liberated areas, we launched this initiative.”

Hamidi added that the initiative demands the release of all the detainees and the forcibly disappeared in the prisons of the military factions in the liberated areas of Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama, or referring them to the concerned courts to be tried publicly after declaring the charges against them. 

It also calls for banning the detention and arrest of the people without warrants, as well as eliminating secret prisons and the phenomenon of the masked people in the different “liberated” areas.

The organizations, which launched the initiative, formed a monitoring committee to apply its outputs and to coordinate with the councils and factions in the area.