Over 100 Sweida residents detained in Adra Prison

Local and rights sources reported that the detainees remain held at Adra Central Prison in rural Damascus following raids and military operations in the city and surrounding areas in mid-July conducted by forces affiliated with the Damascus government.

State media agency SANA recently published images from inside the prison, claiming to show a committee investigating the detainees. Families.

However, identified several individuals as civilians abducted from their homes and villages. Some detainees are under eighteen, making their detention alongside adults a clear legal violation.

Families have received no official information regarding the fate of their relatives, apart from what appeared in the media images. The detainees have not been brought before judges nor allowed to hire lawyers, in direct violation of Syria’s Code of Criminal Procedure, which mandates that any detainee be presented to a court within 24 hours.

Syria’s Penal Code criminalizes kidnapping and detention outside legal frameworks, punishable by hard labor. Rights groups stress that these actions amount to enforced disappearance, particularly given families’ inability to ascertain the whereabouts of their loved ones.

 The violations are further compounded by the public release of detainee images by government media, without trial or conviction, in clear breach of the presumption of innocence and human dignity.

According to activists, the Damascus government bears direct responsibility for these violations at criminal, civil, and political levels.

 The issue of Sweida detainees has thus become an open human rights case, with hundreds of families continuing to search for their missing relatives, including approximately 75 women who remain unaccounted for, while all detainees shown in Adra Prison appear to be male.

a.k

ANHA