syria-un-20140212 38

A/HRC/25/65 38 described being subjected to torture during their detention. In all the instances documented, the victims were denied their fundamental right to due process. They were deprived of contact with the outside world, including close relatives. No legal assistance was provided. They were placed outside the law, at the mercy of their captors. A. Silencing the opposition 12. Consistent accounts indicate that in the early days of Syria’s unrest, enforced disappearances were employed by the Government to silence the opposition and spread fear amongst relatives and friends of demonstrators, activists and bloggers. 13. Military commanders undertook a coordinated policy together with intelligence agencies to target civilian protesters through mass arrests and enforced disappearances in 2011 and early 2012. A former officer of an army brigade operating in Al-Waer in Homs stated that during the army operations in Bab Amr in January 2012, soldiers attacked protesters in the streets while intelligence officers systematically arrested all those who were not killed. Following the attacks against demonstrators, the same brigade carried out house raids, jointly with intelligence officers, indiscriminately arresting more individuals. Their families were never informed of their whereabouts. 14. One survivor, arrested by the Air Force Intelligence in March 2011 after taking part in a demonstration, was transported to the Mezzeh Airport Prison, where he was interrogated and tortured. Subsequently, he was transferred to the premises of the Air Force Intelligence, where a high-ranking officer openly threatened to kill him should he participate in further demonstrations. Throughout his ordeal and despite repeated attempts to locate him, his family was never notified of his arrest, detention and whereabouts. 15. Another interviewee who, together with his cousin, participated in protests in Jisr El Shoughour, Idlib in June 2011, reported that security forces raided his cousin’s house shortly after the demonstration, and abducted him from his bed. His cousin was taken to an unknown location and his whereabouts were never disclosed. The interviewee said “on more than one night, my daughter woke up after she heard her mother crying. Every night, we thought that the security services were coming to get us”. 16. Consistent testimonies reveal a pattern; the vast majority of those disappeared in 2011 and early 2012 were young men. A man, who defected from the political security branch of Aleppo in March 2012, reported that officers received orders to arrest every young male and adolescent between 16 and 40 years old that participated in demonstrations. 17. The available accounts indicate a policy targeting civilians executed through various organs of the Syrian Government, aimed at stifling the protest movement. Enforced disappearances were employed to instil fear, oppress and assert control over persons taking part in demonstrations against the Government and were undertaken during coordinated attacks on the civilian population. B. Enforced disappearance as reprisals and punishment 18. In certain cases, enforced disappearances had a strong punitive element, targeting those perceived to be either supportive of the opposition or insufficiently loyal to the Government. 19. Several interviewees indicated that soldiers who refused to execute orders or were suspected of harbouring opposition sympathies were subjected to reprisals, including disappearance. A former army conscript, who operated in the town of Tseel in Dara’a i