Families for Freedom

Families for Freedom (Arabic: عائلات من أجل الحرية; French: Les familles pour la liberté) is a Syrian non-governmental organization and advocacy movement founded in 2017 by families whose members have been imprisoned or forcibly disappeared. It is a women-led, peaceful movement that positions itself against forced disappearance and arbitrary detention carried out by the Syrian regime as well as by all parties to the conflict. The organization describes itself as a movement of Syrian families demanding freedom for all the country's children, and states that it will not end until the last Syrian is found and released. The group emerged from informal mutual-aid gatherings of women and relatives of the disappeared that began around 2014, and was formally established as an association in 2017. Its founding members include Noura Ghazi, a human-rights lawyer and wife of the detained activist Bassel Khartabil; Amina Khoulani, a peace activist from Daraya whose husband and three brothers were imprisoned; Fadwa Mahmoud, wife of the disappeared communist leader Abdel al-Aziz el-Kheir; Bayan Shurbaji, sister of the peace activists Ma'an and Yahia Shurbaji; Farizah Jahjah, a feminist activist; Hala al-Ghawi, a surgeon; and Ghana Abou Mesto. Several members have themselves been detained and tortured, including Amina Khoulani, who was imprisoned for six months for her peaceful activism and received the International Women of Courage Award in 2020, and Asmaa Saad Aldin, imprisoned for 15 months for smuggling medicine into the besieged city of Deraa. The organization's core objective is to run an information and public-awareness campaign demanding the return of those subjected to forced disappearance in Syria, and to use that awareness to pressure international bodies so that the fate of detainees becomes known. Its demands include the publication of a list of all detainees with their place and status of detention; an immediate halt to torture and ill-treatment; the provision of death certificates, reports on the circumstances and causes of death, and the body or its location to families; authorization for international humanitarian organizations to deliver food and medical aid and for international human-rights organizations to access detention centers; and the abolition of exceptional courts, including the military court and the counter-terrorism court, with fair trials under United Nations supervision. Families for Freedom is supported by three Syrian organizations: The Syria Campaign, Women Now for Development, and Dawlaty. It has organized a tour across several European cities using a red London bus marked with "Damascus" as its destination, meeting Syrian families with imprisoned or disappeared members and engaging the public. According to Amnesty International, because the majority of victims of forced disappearance are men, it is often women — wives, mothers, sisters, or daughters of the disappeared — who organize in associations worldwide to demand accountability and refuse to abandon the missing, as Families for Freedom does. In Syria, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people disappeared between 2011 and 2018, the vast majority arrested by the Syrian regime, which in its generalized and systematic form is considered a crime against humanity, while nearly 2,000 of the disappeared are believed to be held by armed opposition groups.

Families for Freedom grew out of informal gatherings that began in 2014, when several women and relatives of disappeared persons came together to support one another. In 2017 these efforts were formalized with the creation of the association Families for Freedom. The founding members included Noura Ghazi, a human-rights lawyer and wife of the democracy activist Bassel Khartabil, who was arrested in 2012, disappeared completely in 2015, and was confirmed in 2017 to have been executed; Amina Khoulani, a peace activist from Daraya whose husband and three brothers were also imprisoned (Majed, Abdelsatar, and Mohammad Khoulani died in Saidnaya prison in 2013, though the fate of two of the brothers was only known in 2018); Fadwa Mahmoud, wife of Abdel al-Aziz el-Kheir, a leader of the communist party arrested by the regime and disappeared with their son since September 2012; Bayan Shurbaji, sister of Ma'an and Yahia Shurbaji, peace activists who died in the regime's prisons; Farizah Jahjah, a feminist activist and wife of Nasser Bandak, disappeared in the regime's prisons since 2012; Hala al-Ghawi, a surgeon with no news of her younger brother since his incarceration; and Ghana Abou Mesto, an activist whose husband disappeared in 2012. Several members of the organization have themselves been detained and tortured. Amina Khoulani was imprisoned for six months for her peaceful activism and received the International Women of Courage Award in 2020. Asmaa Saad Aldin was imprisoned for 15 months for bringing medicine into the besieged city of Deraa. Other Syrian activists whose family members have disappeared in Syrian prisons, such as Wafa Mustapha, joined and became active within Families for Freedom. The association is supported by three Syrian organizations: The Syria Campaign, Women Now for Development, and Dawlaty. According to Noura Ghazi, who said she had "knocked on every door" for seven years, meeting governments appeared to serve no purpose in diplomatically pressing for and obtaining information about political detainees imprisoned by Bashar al-Assad's regime. The objective of Families for Freedom therefore became to conduct an information and public-awareness campaign demanding the return of those subjected to forced disappearance in Syria, and to use that awareness to pressure international bodies so that the fate of detainees would become known. The association organized a tour across several European cities aboard a red London bus marked with "Damascus" as its terminus, meeting Syrian families with an imprisoned or disappeared member and engaging the public. The context in which the organization works is stark: according to Amnesty International, because the majority of victims of forced disappearance are men, it is often women — wives, mothers, sisters, or daughters of the disappeared — who organize in associations worldwide to demand accountability and refuse to abandon the missing, as Families for Freedom does. In Syria, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people disappeared between 2011 and 2018, the vast majority arrested by the Syrian regime, which in its generalized and systematic form is considered a crime against humanity, while nearly 2,000 of the disappeared are believed to be held by armed opposition groups.

• 2020

  Founding member Amina Khoulani receives the International Women of Courage Award.

• 2017

  Families for Freedom is founded as an association of Syrian families with an imprisoned or forcibly disappeared member.

• 2014

  Several women and relatives of disappeared persons begin meeting to support one another.

A women-led, peaceful Syrian advocacy movement against forced disappearance and arbitrary detention, campaigning for the release and whereabouts of detainees and the disappeared.

1. 1Les familles pour la liberté - We want our loved ones back.syrianfamilies.org
2. 2Families for Freedomwikidata.org
3. 3Families for Freedomfr.wikipedia.org