Transitional government in Syria arrests human rights activist

The arrest took place yesterday at the al-Jdeidah border crossing between Syria and Lebanon, where Matar was detained by Syrian authorities.

The arrest came shortly after the opening of the “Syrian Prisons Museum” at its new center inside the National Museum in Damascus. The project is a virtual initiative aimed at documenting the history of prisons and violations in Syria.

In a statement, the museum’s administration said that “the arrest of Matar represents an attack on freedom of expression and the memory of the victims.” The statement condemned his detention, stressing that “Matar was a key witness in the Koblenz trial in Germany against members of the former regime’s security services,” and considered his arrest “lacking any legal legitimacy.”

The statement also noted that the museum’s team was prevented from inquiring about Matar’s place of detention or the authority that took him, stressing that “the complete blackout on his fate recalls the practices of arbitrary detention.” The museum held the transitional government and the Ministry of Interior “fully responsible for his safety,” demanding the immediate disclosure of his whereabouts and his release.

Amer Matar, 37, born in Raqqa, is considered one of the first detainees of the March 2011 uprising. He was subjected to torture in the prisons of the former regime before his release. He left for Germany in 2012 after a series of arrests, but continued his work covering Syrian events and documenting violations.

He founded the “Street” organization and the “ISIS Prisons Museum,” which documents more than 100 detention sites and contains a database of nearly 70,000 documents and testimonies from hundreds of survivors of prisons and massacres, in addition to 3D virtual tours of prisons and mass graves.

Matar is regarded as a key witness in the Koblenz trial in Germany against security officials involved in crimes of torture.

In an official statement, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior of the transitional government claimed that his arrest was due to “attempts to use certain state security files for his personal interests.”

A-H 

ANHA