The Syrian Bar Association announced the formation of a committee to follow up on and represent the families of victims of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and extrajudicial killing in Syria, through free official legal authorization.

The move is based on safeguarding human dignity and the association’s commitment to protecting the right to life, liberty, and personal security, according to a statement it published on its Facebook page on Monday, 4 May.

The statement said Syria had witnessed, over successive decades, particularly since 2011, grave, systematic, and widespread violations, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and extrajudicial killing. These violations resulted in hundreds of thousands of people going missing, with their fate still unknown, which constitutes a grave and continuing violation of human rights and the law.

The impact of people going missing is not limited to the missing person alone, but extends to their family and society as a whole.

The association said in its statement that the right to know the truth about the fate of the missing and the circumstances of their disappearance is an inherent right of families and a collective right of society. It is also a basic pillar of transitional justice, accountability, reparations, achieving civil peace, and guarantees of non-recurrence.

It stressed the need for full cooperation between the follow-up committee, the Ministry of Justice, the Transitional Justice Commission, the Missing Persons Commission, and all other concerned bodies. It also called for providing the committee with available information and data, making an active contribution, offering legal support to the families of the missing and those affected, and working with professional and humanitarian responsibility to achieve justice and redress for victims.

“Support Group”

The National Commission for the Missing launched, on 30 August 2025, the “Support for the National Commission for the Missing in Syria” platform, in cooperation with six civil society organizations concerned with documenting Syrians forcibly disappeared since 1970. The launch took place during a press conference attended by Enab Baladi at the time, along with several local and Arab media outlets.

The platform, or support group, aims to create an information bank for missing persons, in addition to a card project to support their families legally, psychologically, and socially, while establishing protocols for witness protection and data exchange.

The platform included several organizations that have participated in documenting victims of enforced disappearance, most notably the Syria Justice and Accountability Center, the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, the Syrian Archive, the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison, Lawyers and Doctors for Human Rights, and the Caesar Families Association.

Having a Lawyer Does Not Mean Defending the Crime

The Bar Association stated on Facebook on 1 May in response to debate on social media over the legality of appointing lawyers to defend accused figures from the former regime in trials before the Criminal Court at the Damascus Justice Palace, whether the lawyer is privately retained or court-appointed.

It affirmed that the presence of a lawyer for the accused does not mean defending or justifying the crime, but is a basic legal guarantee required by the rules of justice and the Syrian Code of Criminal Procedure.

The Syrian Bar Association said that “attention today is turning toward achieving justice and holding accountable the criminals who were steeped in Syrian blood, in accordance with proper legal procedures.”

The association considered that one of the most important of these procedures, which some may misunderstand, is the need for the accused to have a lawyer, whether a lawyer chosen by the accused or one appointed by the court.

A trial in which no lawyer attends on behalf of the accused, in cases heard before the Criminal Court, is incomplete and vulnerable to annulment, regardless of the gravity of the crimes committed, according to the association.