Where is my brother Tahsein Mamo?

Aiysha Mamo has asked International Support Kurds in Syria Association – SKS for assistance to discover the circumstances and whereabouts of her brother Tahsein Mamo who has disappeared in the Syrian prison system. Aiysha who lives in Germany said, ‘I would do anything to find my brother. I think about him every day, I miss him so much’.

Tahsein’s cousin, Yaseen Mamo has also expressed his deep concern about what may have happened, and spoke of how their lives had been affected by his disappearance.

Tahsein, born 1980 in Afrin is married with one son. He lives in Aleppo.  He was arrested with four other people at the end of January 2007 during a raid by a patrol of military security officers, and they were taken to the branch of military security in Aleppo, and then on to the Investigation Branch of the military security in Damascus.

Amnesty International in their report Your son is not here [July 2010] reports that:

Tahsein Mamo, a member of the Yezidi Kurdish minority, was being held at Saydnaya in July 2008 along with four other men probably in connection with their peaceful activities as members of the unauthorized Kurdish Yekiti Party in Syria. The five men were arrested on 29 January 2007 at one of their homes in Aleppo, north Syria. All were facing trial before the SSSC prior to July 2008.

Human Rights Watch listed Tahsein Mamo along with many other prisoners whose whereabouts were not known following the use of firearms on prisoners by prison staff in Sednya Prison on 5 July 2008, in their reports Group Denial – Repression of Kurdish Political and Cultural Rights in Syria [26 November 2009], and their later report Syria: Lift Blackout on Prisoners’ Fate [10 December 2009]:

Following riots in Sednaya prison in July 2008, their families lost all contact with them as a consequence of an information blackout imposed by the authorities. In July 2009 four of the families managed to see their relatives, but the family of Tahsein Mamo remained without information about him at the time of writing. Their trial before the SSSC is ongoing.

Tahsein and the four others who were arrested with him appeared in Court, however the other four detainees were brought to the Supreme State Security Court [SSSC] on 18 April 2010, but Tahsein had been separated from them and did not appear at the trial. According to the Kurdish Yekiti Party in Syria sources, the military police in the prison said that they had transferred him to the investigation branch linked to military security in Damascus.

Amnesty International confirm in their report that Tahsein Mamo’s name had been removed from the case file.  When Tahsein Mamo’s lawyer sought clarification about this, he was reportedly told by court staff “not to play with fire”.

The four men were sentenced on 18 April 2010 to five years’ imprisonment for belonging to a banned organization with the “aim of separating part of the Syrian lands”, a charge commonly brought against political activists belonging to the Kurdish minority. Amnesty International believes that Tahsein Mamo and the four men with whom he was due to stand trial are probably prisoners of conscience held solely for peacefully expressing their views about issues relating to the Kurdish minority in Syria.

Amnesty International report continues:

In March 2010 staff at the Military Police premises in al-Qaboun told a relative that Tahsein Mamo was not allowed family visits; no other information was provided. On 20 April 2010, the Palestine Branch in Damascus told Tahsein Mamo’s family that he was not allowed visits but again did not provide any other information.

Two other Kurds are named in the Amnesty International report – Shiyar Mamo, aged 32, a Kurd, arrested on 4 February 2006 and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by the SSSC on 29 April 2007. There is also mystery in the case of Khoshnaf Suleiman, a Syrian Kurd who Syrian human rights organizations believe may have died during the disturbances.

In 2009 the General Military Prosecution office in Damascus sent his family a death

certificate which stated that Khoshnaf  Suleiman had died some six years earlier, on 31 March 2003, but provided no information about the cause of death or where he was buried.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have raised significant concern that two years after the Sednaya disturbances, relatives of the dead and missing prisoners are still awaiting the outcome of any investigation that may have been held.

Independent and thorough investigations into such incidents are required under Article 2(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Syria is party.

Amnesty International:

This lack of adequate action by the authorities following allegations of serious human rights violations is the norm in Syria, where members of the Military Intelligence, State Security, Political Security and the Air Force Security are rarely if ever held to account for abuses. In fact, these and other state forces are largely exempted from prosecution for abuses under emergency legislation in force since 1963.

International Support Kurds in Syria Association – SKS together with Tahsein Mamo’s family call on the Syrian authorities to tell his family if he is alive and, if so, where he is being held and his legal status.  We call for his release unless he has been charged with internationally recognized criminal offences or convicted of such offences and sentenced to imprisonment after fair trials.

We expect that the Syrian authorities and Government will pay scant regard to this request and so we also ask the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and Governments that have embassies in Syria to make representations to the Syrian Government on Tahsein Mamo’s behalf for information about his situation so that his family can be informed of his status, his condition and where he is being held.

9 August 2010