[Midden-Oosten] Fwd: Petition to protect Syrian detainees threatened by coronavirus

[Jeff]

PETITION URL:
https://act.thesyriacampaign.org/sign/covid19-protect-syrian-detainees/


SUBJECT: COVID-19: Urgent action to protect Syria's detainees
DATE: 2020-03-25 18:09
FROM: "Dr Hala al-Ghawi via The Syria Campaign" 
<info op thesyriacampaign.org>

My name is Hala. I am a medical doctor and a co-founder of the Families 
for Freedom movement which campaigns for freedom and justice for Syria's 
detainees.

While my colleagues around the world battle the worst pandemic in living 
memory, I am terrified of coronavirus spreading into Assad's underground 
detention dungeons. Across Syria, tens of thousands of detainees are 
crowded into squalid, unventilated cells. Their immune systems are 
exhausted by the regime's systemic torture and mistreatment. A 
coronavirus outbreak in these conditions is unimaginable horror.

On top of this, for many years the regime and Russia have attacked 
Syria's medical community directly, exactly the people and systems that 
are most needed to stop the outbreak. My husband was detained and 
tortured for months just for being a doctor.

The Syrian regime who took our loved ones from us has no interest in 
protecting detainees -- but in these days when the rest of the world is 
united against a common enemy, I pray that the UN and international 
health authorities can be pushed into using their powers to stop a 
coronavirus outbreak in Syria's detention centers.

Please join Families for Freedom and sign the petition to demand urgent 
action to release all Syrian detainees -- amid the rapid global spread 
of COVID-19.

I have seen the effects of detention on many former detainees who I 
treated as a doctor. I will never forget the time a young woman was 
brought to me after she was released. She was suffering from multiple 
diseases and her body was covered in scars from the constant torture she 
had endured. She told me about her friend who passed away from sickness 
and the inhumane treatment.

I have had to step out of my interviews with detainees like her to cry 
on many occasions.

Under these conditions, and now amid the rapid global spread of 
Coronavirus, we ask the UN Special Envoy for Syria and all UN agencies 
to demand the immediate release of all detainees held in these wretched 
prisons and unofficial detention centers. At the very least, 
international health organizations like the Red Cross and the World 
Health Organization must have regular access to detention facilities in 
order to provide critical sanitary measures and medical treatment to 
detainees.

Additionally, the UN must insist that the pardon decree issued by Bashar 
al-Assad on Sunday, and all future decrees, do not exclude political 
prisoners and human rights defenders.

The world realizes that COVID-19 can be deadly for those with 
compromised immune systems and the elderly -- but what about those who 
are broken down by starvation, torture, and who are left to face this 
virus alone? An outbreak of coronavirus amongst detainees could cause a 
vast number of deaths and the world must take responsibility to prevent 
this.

Please sign this urgent petition, coronavirus is spreading rapidly and 
we don't have a day to lose.

My brother and my father-in-law were both arbitrarily detained in 2013, 
and since then I have campaigned tirelessly alongside others in the 
Families for Freedom movement for their freedom, and justice for all of 
our loved ones who have been detained and forcibly disappeared in Syria.

For years Syrians have experienced every kind of death: by barrel bombs, 
chemical weapons, starvation, drowning, and torture. Unless the UN grows 
a backbone and acts now, countless detainees will experience death by 
coronavirus in underground dungeons.

Yours,
Dr Hala al-Ghawi

-------------------------

The Syria Campaign is an independent advocacy group campaigning for a 
peaceful and democratic future for Syria. Read more about our work here: 
https://act.thesyriacampaign.org/go/2689