The Truth and Justice Charter Associations follow with profound sorrow and dismay reports of recurring deaths under torture at the hands of Syrian law enforcement agencies, in a series of documented cases that have claimed the lives of around seventy Syrian citizens in recent months. The most recent cases are the deaths of Mohammad Hussam al-Din Ghmeira and Louay Muhammad Zourouf.
Our associations were formed through the collective efforts of families of detainees, forcibly disappeared persons, and missing persons held in the prisons and detention facilities of the Assad regime and other armed actors throughout the revolution and war, as well as survivors who experienced the machinery of repression and mass killings from within. Together, we built a shared struggle to secure the release of detainees, establish the fate of missing persons, end arbitrary detention, and put an end to torture and unlawful killings, including killings carried out following summary judicial proceedings.
Our memories remain painfully fresh and burdened by the loss of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who sought dignity, freedom, and justice. We continue to work to uncover what happened to our loved ones and to bring those responsible for their suffering before the courts. After all these years of suffering and immense sacrifices, we cannot accept that more Syrians be killed under torture, arbitrarily detained, or forcibly disappeared under any pretext. We cannot accept that more Syrian women be widowed or more children orphaned at the hands of those entrusted with protecting the lives, dignity, and freedoms of Syrians, nor that another generation of Syrians be left suspended in the anguish of waiting for a loved one who was detained and whose fate remains unknown.
The Truth and Justice Charter Associations reiterate that any form of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment is absolutely prohibited under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which Syria acceded in 2004. This prohibition is absolute and permits no exception or justification, regardless of the health condition or physical or psychological well-being of the person in detention, and whether or not the act results in visible harm.
Article 18 of the Syrian Constitutional Declaration further provides: “The State shall safeguard human dignity and the inviolability of the body, prohibit enforced disappearance and physical and psychological torture, and torture crimes shall not be subject to a statute of limitations. Except in cases of flagrante delicto, no person may be arrested, detained, or have their liberty restricted except by a judicial decision.”
Denying an assault, minimizing its severity, or seeking to justify it on the basis of the victim’s identity, political views, religion, ethnicity, or criminal record does not alter its legal character as prohibited cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Nor does it alter the fact that it constitutes an unlawful use of force against a person deprived of liberty and under State control, in violation of the State’s national and international obligations to safeguard human dignity and protect individuals from ill-treatment.
The recurrence of deaths under torture comes in a context in which the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, in its report issued on 12 March 2026, documented multiple patterns of violations between 8 December 2024 and 31 January 2026. These included arbitrary detention; torture, ill-treatment, and humiliation in official and unofficial detention facilities; enforced disappearance; extortion of detainees’ families; deaths in the custody of government forces; and the denial to families of the bodies of their loved ones, death certificates, and the truth about what happened to them.
The Commission also documented extrajudicial killings, the abduction of women and girls, and sexual violence, attributing responsibility, depending on the individual incident, to members of government forces and actors operating alongside them, as well as to armed groups and other de facto authorities. There is no doubt that these violations cannot be equated with the extensive and systematic crimes committed by the Assad regime. Nevertheless, they evoke the very tools of repression employed by that regime, and their reproduction within the institutions of the new State cannot be tolerated.
Accordingly, our associations call for the following:
- Ensuring a complete and absolute separation between the functions and powers of the police and security services, in their capacity as judicial police, and those of the Public Prosecution and the judiciary. The role of the judicial police must be strictly limited to detecting crimes, preparing official records, collecting evidence, and executing judicial orders, without extending their role to procedural investigations or decisions on detention. The authority to order pre-trial detention, direct investigations, and assess the lawfulness of detention must rest exclusively with an independent judiciary, represented by the Public Prosecution and the investigating judge.
- Ensuring that all legal procedures are followed in arrests so that arrest does not become arbitrary detention. This must include taking into account the detainee’s health condition, providing the necessary medical care, and ensuring that they can communicate with their family and lawyer immediately upon arrest.
- Conducting independent, transparent, and non-discriminatory criminal investigations into deaths occurring in prisons and places of detention. Such investigations must examine the alleged assault, the grounds for and legality of the detention, whether the detention resulted from an abuse of authority or influence, and the chain of command and responsibility within law enforcement agencies.
- Establishing the legal status of every person subject to an investigation and clarifying the responsibilities and roles of those referred for investigation, whether as witnesses or suspects, and referring anyone against whom sufficient evidence of responsibility exists to the criminal courts.
- Prosecuting those found to be responsible through public trials before an independent civilian judiciary, while respecting the presumption of innocence and ensuring the safety and privacy of witnesses. A secure reporting channel must be established to allow personnel working in places of detention to report violations safely. Criminal penalties proportionate to the gravity of the acts must be imposed on those found guilty, and disciplinary accountability must not be treated as a substitute for criminal prosecution.
- Establishing a unified, searchable national register of all persons arrested or detained, covering all police stations, security branches, prisons, and temporary detention facilities, while prohibiting detention in any undisclosed location. Legal arrest procedures must be guaranteed by informing the family immediately of the place and legal basis of detention and of any transfers, bringing detainees before a judicial authority, providing them with legal counsel, and enabling them to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.
- Reforming the culture of criminal investigation and moving away from a model based on extracting confessions from detainees towards one based on gathering evidence before arrest, scientific investigation, physical and digital evidence, witness testimony, and the presumption of innocence. No confession obtained through coercion may be relied upon. Any officer suspected of committing torture or covering it up must be suspended from duty pending the conclusion of an independent investigation.
- Ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; accepting individual complaint mechanisms; and implementing the order of the International Court of Justice in the case brought by Canada and the Netherlands against the Syrian State, which requires Syria to take all measures within its power to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment and to preserve evidence relating to such acts.
- Establishing an independent national mechanism for monitoring places of detention, with the participation of Syrian civil society, the judiciary, and the legislative body, and granting it unrestricted and unannounced access to all prisons, security branches, police stations, and temporary detention facilities; the ability to conduct private interviews with detainees; access to records; and the authority to receive complaints.
The Truth and Justice Charter