The Next Century Foundation has just held a meeting at the United Nations in Geneva, on the sidelines of the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, to discuss the human rights situation in Syria and the fate of detainees and missing persons in the wake of recent political developments, with particular focus on violations affecting minorities.
The meeting was chaired by Jaafar El-Ahmar, UK Director of The Next Century Foundation. Participants included Ammar Waqqaf, Director of Gnosos Think Tank, and Dr. Jens Kreinath, Director of the Institute for the Documentation of Human Rights Violations against Religious Minorities in the Levant.
Dr. Jens Kreinath is an expert in documentation, minority protection, and patterns of human rights violations across conflict zones. Ammar Waqqaf is the lead author of the Gnosos-SyREP report on former Syrian army servicemen detained or unaccounted for since December 2024.
The meeting was part of a series of events organized by The Next Century Foundation in Geneva over the past two years, highlighting human rights violations and persecution affecting minorities in Syria, including sectarian-motivated violations, attacks against civilians, and abductions.
The discussion focused on the fate of detainees and missing persons, alongside testimonies and reports concerning detention without trial, torture, and deaths in custody.
Participants called for:
- Urgent and transparent measures to address the issue of detainees and missing persons, describing it as a human rights and humanitarian priority during Syria’s transitional phase.
- They stressed the need to ensure families’ right to receive reliable information about the fate of their relatives, protect detainees, and prevent torture and other forms of ill-treatment.
- The participants also emphasized the importance of subjecting information and data concerning missing persons to independent verification mechanisms and supporting local documentation efforts, with the aim of enabling accountability for those responsible for violations through fair and due procedures.
They stressed that addressing this issue represents an important test of the credibility of state institutions and the transitional justice process in Syria. Establishing the fate of missing persons and providing their families with reliable answers, they said, could contribute to advancing justice and strengthening prospects for social reconciliation.
