This is a message from our colleague, Wafa Mustafa, whose father, Ali Mustafa, was forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime in 2013. Now that the regime has fallen, support Wafa and sign the petition to demand answers for families who are still searching for their missing loved ones.
When the first prison in Aleppo was opened on 30 November 2024, during the days that led to Assad fleeing the country, my heart was filled with both hope and fear. My father, Ali Mustafa, and I lived our whole lives for the fall of the regime, but it was impossible to celebrate without him. He was kidnapped from our home in Damascus on 2 July 2013 by Assad’s intelligence forces.
My father taught me the true meaning of freedom and I have spoken out every day since his arrest– as dozens, then hundreds and thousands of days amassed with no word. From my exile in Berlin, I searched for my father’s face in videos being uploaded randomly of detainees walking free. Seeing the chaos on the ground and vital documents being thrown across the floors of detention centers, I decided to return to Syria in December, for the first time in 11 years, to find answers myself.
In Syria, I entered detention centers and morgues in hospitals, searching for any piece of information about what happened to my dad. But it shouldn’t be down to individuals to search through hundreds of dead bodies and documents for scraps of information. That’s why the families of detainees and I urgently need your support to increase pressure on the international community, the UN, and Syria’s interim authorities to act – to reveal their fate and hold the perpetrators of these crimes to account.
It is estimated that 112,000 people remain disappeared, as well as thousands of children of detainees who were taken by the regime. In these critical days, as we try to find them, will you sign the petition to pressure all relevant
authorities? Together, we can demand justice for the disappearance, torture, and killing of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children.
In Syria, I visited Yarmouk camp in the Damascus suburbs, where my father used to live, where I saw firsthand the destruction and devastation that Assad left behind. I protested with families and spoke to dozens of journalists. All I wanted was for the world, including the new authorities in Syria, to listen, support families, and protect evidence. But weeks have passed and we as families still have no answers or support. We must push back against attempts to cover up these horrific crimes or make us forget our loved ones.
This month, a group of families and I met with Ahmad al-Sharaa, the interim president of Syria, to petition the new authorities in person to address our demands. We insisted that the interim government must collaborate with Syria’s families, civil society, and all international institutions with a mandate to address these crimes. Anything less than the whole truth about where our loved ones remain is unacceptable to us.
Our struggle is far from over, which is why we urgently need people around the world to support us at this crucial stage. You can help to pressure the UN’s missing persons mechanisms, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the interim authorities of Syria to take every necessary step to uncover the truth about those who remain disappeared and hold all perpetrators to account. Will you sign the petition to show that thousands of people inside Syria and around the world are watching?
I am deeply proud that today Syria is free from Assad, and that we finally have the opportunity to build the country my father and so many of us dreamed of. Side by side with survivors of atrocities and families of Syria’s detainees, I believe that together we have the power to ensure that the horrors of arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearance never happen again.
Our dream of a free, just, and dignified Syria for all is only possible by achieving the truth and justice – but it is all still at stake.