Since the beginning of the Syrian revolution, Syrians have been arbitrarily arrested, detained, physically abused, harassed, and tortured by the government forces, pro-regime militias, and mainly by the country’s many intelligence agencies, collectively called the mukhabarat.
In this context, Zaman Alwasl has obtained a list of 96,000 Syrians, wanted by Air Force Intelligence. However, the accuracy of such list hasn’t been confirmed and the person who sent the information preferred anonymity.
The list in details the person’s name, parents’ names, birthplace, age, address, accusations of various charges (possessing weapons , conspiring against the state, funding and agitating terrorist acts, and leading armed groups) in addition to the intelligence agency and detailed information of what he/she has done.
It is believed this information is mostly obtained from intelligence reports or informants due to the accuracy of its content in describing the actions and descriptions.
Despite verifying 500 names that were listed randomly, Zaman al-Wasl doesn’t adopt this file, and has already published at the beginning of the Syrian revolution, lists of 10,000 wanted civilians for the Air Force and military Intelligence in Homs, and a longer list of names of those wanted throughout Syria.
However, these lists raise a lot of doubts about the objectives behind leaking them, the authenticity of names contained therein and their security situation, especially when many of them were published to be used in blackmailing or extortion, while others with a particular sectarian affiliation were not mentioned at all.
For his part, a former detainee has told Zaman al-Wasl that the source’s aim of revealing this list is to either alert the wanted persons, or give credit to some informants in order to facilitate their access to the distressed community and the opposition.
Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer
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