Families of wanted persons outside the borders are in the grip of the Syrian Intelligence - Enab Baladi

Enab Baladi - Lujain Murad

“My biggest dream is not to spend the rest of my life besieged by the regime’s threats,” a few words with which “Abdullah” (61 years old) summed up his life in Syria in light of the security pursuits of him and his family in search of his son, who is wanted by the Syrian regime.

During the past years, the Syrian regime has put obstacles in the path of many wanted families in Syria, turning their daily lives into a prison created by threats and raids, and obstructing legal procedures.

Despite the regime's confirmation of the whereabouts of the wanted persons outside Syria's borders, the security apparatus continued to practice extortion and isolate the families of the wanted persons from society, similar to the isolation of former political detainees in Syria.

The regime also continued its arbitrary arrest campaigns in the areas under its control, as it arrested about 1,032 people during the year 2021, including 19 children and 23 women, according to the report of the “Syrian Network for Human Rights.”

The fear continues

“I have been repeatedly arrested, and although my detention did not last long, the regime was able to maintain a constant state of fear in our house,” complains “Abdullah,” a fictitious name for security reasons. Fear controls his life and the life of his family.

The regime’s knowledge of the impossibility of the return of the wanted persons to Syria did not prevent them from threatening their families, taking the threats as a means to keep the families of the wanted persons in constant danger, as revenge against their children, according to “Abdullah.”

Haneen (a fictitious name for security reasons), a 22-year-old young woman, said that the regime deliberately constantly asks about her wanted brothers, to always remind them that danger still exists.

Emphasizing that the aim of the security restrictions on the families of the wanted persons was only to preserve the perpetuation of the state of fear, Hanin told Enab Baladi that the regime’s agents repeatedly asked, “What are you afraid of?” when asked about her brothers.

Haneen added that a car belonging to the security services kept chasing her for days, as the regime deprived her of a sense of safety even while she was walking on the street, as she put it.

Threats that cross borders

During his interview with Enab Baladi, “Abdullah” stressed that he did not mention his real name, for fear of exposing his wife and daughters to danger, adding that he does not use social media under his real name, and refuses to engage in Any talk about the security situation in Syria.

Abdullah explained, “My biggest dream is not to spend the rest of my life besieged by the regime’s threats,” and for his family to be in a safe place, where the regime’s security grip does not reach them.

Rose, a former detainee wanted by the regime, also said that she became afraid to testify against those involved in the violations residing in Turkey, after threatening her family, following her participation in one of the campaigns advocating the female detainees.

For his part, the executive director of the “The Day After” organization, Moatasem Sioufi, considered that the Syrian regime aims, through security restrictions on the families of the wanted persons, to ensure the continuity of terror and deterrence in the Syrian society.

“A tool in the hands of the regime”

Since 2011, the Syrian regime has considered the families of wanted persons as a means of pressure on their children to obtain information and documents, or to force them to surrender themselves and back down from the positions of opposition to the regime.

“I was not targeted by the arrest campaigns. The aim was to convey a message to my son that reinforces his feelings of guilt towards us, and tries to create a feeling of remorse within him. I was nothing but a tool in the hands of the regime.” This is how “Abdullah” described the regime’s endeavor to turn the families of wanted men into a mere tool to achieve its goals. which no one can fully predict.

Abdullah said that the security forces kept asking him about the life of his son, who resides in Turkey, despite his continuous attempts to confirm that there was no communication between him and his son.

After “Abdullah” was released from detention in 2021, and about two months have passed since his arrival in Turkey, the regime put pressure on him and his son through his wife and daughters residing in Syria, which made him in a state of constant fear, even in his exile.

For her part, Abeer (54 years old) said, “Every time I was interrogated, the security forces kept repeating phrases starting with (tell your son…) in an attempt to load me with many threatening and blackmail messages.”

Abeer spoke to Enab Baladi about her transformation into a tool to threaten her son by the Syrian regime.

Between fear and emotion

Fear dominates the relationship of many wanted families with their children, which forced them to cut off for many years, as most families refuse to travel to meet their children, if the possibilities are available, for fear of the security consequences. When they return to Syria, according to what Sioufi said.

Fear also forced parents to create a “lie” that their children would be separated from them, and that communication would be cut off between them, to escape an unpredictable reaction if they disclosed the continuation of communication between them, according to Sioufi.

Abdullah confirmed that he avoided contact with his son during the last months he spent in Syria, and communication was interrupted between them for a long time, so that his son did not know that he had fled from Syria until he arrived in Turkey.

Abd al-Salam (22 years old), who is the son of Abeer, said that his fear for his mother often overwhelms his affection, and this is what drives him to avoid constant contact with her.

“Everything will be seen through money.”

“Everything will be seen through money.” With this equation, the families of the wanted persons whom Enab Baladi spoke to managed to escape the regime’s security grip and conduct their legal transactions, which were stopped by government departments without clear reasons.

Abdullah paid “large” sums to be able to get out of prison, and he also had to pay many times for the security services to stop interrogating his wife without detaining her for long periods.

Abeer said that the regime tried many times to detain her after interrogating her and asking her about her son, but the money saved her from the “nightmare of the detainee.”

Hindering Legal Transactions

The regime did not suffice with security restrictions on the families of wanted persons, and continued to put pressure on them by obstructing their legal transactions, and making money the only solution for their conduct.

“At the end of the waiting hours at the Immigration Department, I was faced with two options, either to pay the money they wanted to complete the transaction, or to return without a passport, and in the worst case, to be arrested,” Hanin said, accusing the regime of turning legal papers into blackmail.

As for Abeer, visits to government departments to obtain a death certificate for one of her sons led her to the interrogation room in a detention center.

The executive director of the “The Day After” organization, Mutasem Sioufi, confirmed that the people, according to the regime, are a means of financial extortion and control of the money and property of wanted persons.

Isolation from society

The Syrian regime worked to isolate the families of the wanted persons from society by maintaining a state of fear and turning the wanted persons and their families into a place of suspicion, according to what the families of the wanted persons said to whom Enab Baladi spoke to.

“The regime succeeded in creating a feeling of alienation within us, even in our homes,” Haneen said, while society practices a form of racism towards the families of the wanted, by refusing to deal with them and rejecting them for many reasons, the most important of which is fear, according to Abeer.

The lives of the wanted and their families are considered an embodiment of the “representative isolation” that was mentioned in the study “Saturated Prisons… Disintegrations in the Assad Prison System,” published by the “Hermon Center for Contemporary Studies,” as the regime was able to direct the blame of society towards the wanted and their families for isolating them from the society.

He was also able to transform the society's relationship with the families of the wanted persons into a source of concern, for fear that their relationship would arouse the jailer's suspicions and put them in danger.

The regime followed three basic elements to achieve its goals, the first of which is the cruelty and bloodshed that has become entrenched in the minds of members of society, the second is the weak organizational environment of society, politically and civilly, and the third is the societal customs that legitimize violence in the absence of a clear accountability mechanism, according to the study.

Isolation Turns Civilians Into Informants

One of the most important reasons that resulted in isolating the families of wanted persons from society is the regime's ability to turn civilians, even their relatives and friends, into informers.

Hanin told Enab Baladi that during the recent raid on their house in search of her brothers, the security forces accompanied a neighbor who became an informant since the regime took control of Eastern Ghouta.

The girl added, “The harm comes from here,” explaining that most of the security restrictions recently resulted from news from the people of the area.

Abeer also confirmed that she is afraid to talk about her son, even in front of her relatives and neighbours, for fear that there will be an informant among them and that her family will be in danger.