Protesters in Syria demand justice for disappeared activists and accountability from all factions

DOUMA, Syria (AP) — Protesters in Syria held a sit-in Wednesday demanding justice for four activists who were forcibly disappeared in 2013 and whose fate remains one of the most haunting mysteries of the country's 13-year civil war.

On Dec. 9, 2013, gunmen stormed the Violation Documentation Center in Douma, northeast of Damascus, and took Razan Zaitouneh, her husband Wael Hamadeh, Samira Khalil and Nazem Hammadi.

Outspoken and defiantly secular, Zaitouneh was one of Syria’s most well-known human rights activists. Perhaps most dangerously, she was impartial. She chanted in protests against then-President Bashar Assad but was also unflinching in documenting abuses by rebels fighting to oust him.

There has been no sign of life nor proof of death since she and her colleagues were abducted.

Since the ouster of Assad on Dec. 8, protests have erupted across Syria demanding information about thousands of people who were forcibly disappeared under his rule. The new leadership under the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which orchestrated the offensive to oust Assad, has maintained a neutral stance regarding accusations against various armed groups for forcibly disappearing activists. At the same time, HTS has aligned with activists in their efforts to uncover the truth and seek justice.

“We are gathering here to remind the world of their case,” Yassin Haj Saleh, Khalil’s husband, said Wednesday, adding that the disappearance of activists represents “the deepest wounds” of Syria’s conflict. “This is the first opportunity that allows us to be in Douma, and in front of the place that they were kidnapped from, to speak up about the case, taking advantage of the political change that took place in the country.”

Saleh said they had repeatedly appealed to various armed groups for cooperation in finding the four activists in the years before Assad's ouster but were met with silence.

Strong clues had pointed to the Army of Islam, the most powerful rebel faction in Douma at the time, as the perpetrators. The group, made up of religious hard-liners who were pushing out other rebels and imposing strict Shariah rules, long denied involvement. An Army of Islam official, Hamza Bayraqdar, told The Associated Press in 2018 they brought Zaitouneh to Douma to protect her from the Assad government.

The Army of Islam repeatedly blamed the Assad government, along with the Nusra Front — an al-Qaida-linked group originally founded by the current HTS leader — for his wife's disappearance, Saleh said.

Zaitouneh was a prominent human rights lawyer and founder of the Violation Documentation Center. She also helped organize networks of activists like the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella network made up of activists who organized protests as part of the Syrian uprising.

Her work earned her international recognition, including an International Woman of Courage award presented by U.S. first lady Michelle Obama in 2013.

Several of those who spoke to the AP in 2018 said the Army of Islam saw Zaitouneh documenting abuses as a threat and resented her local administration plan as an encroachment on their power. Zaitouneh received a series of threats that friends and activists said traced back to the Army of Islam.

The Army of Islam was forced to move north in 2018 after the Assad government retook Douma, leading to the group's weakening and disintegration. Hopes that Zaitouneh and her colleagues would emerge among released prisoners during that time were unmet.

Today, the Army of Islam remains an armed faction backed by Turkey. It did not fight alongside the other Islamist factions that led the offensive against Assad and remains excluded from the HTS-led Syrian leadership. Recently, an Army of Islam delegation met HTS leader Ahmad Sharaa to explore integration into the new Syrian system, but no agreement has been reached.

Protesters on Wednesday held banners openly accusing the Army of Islam and reading “Freedom” in English and “Traitor who kidnaps a revolutionary” in Arabic, alongside posters of the four missing activists.

Saleh described the plight of the disappeared as uniquely painful, saying, “Those who die are mourned, but the forcibly disappeared are forbidden from both living and being mourned.”

Their bodies must be found, he said, adding: “For Syria to heal, truth and justice must prevail.”

Wafa Moustafa, whose father was forcibly disappeared separately in 2013, also attended the protest.

“Justice in Syria cannot be limited to those detained by the Assad regime,” she said. “For many years, other factions controlled parts of Syria and committed similar crimes of detention, torture and killing. If justice does not include all victims, it will remain incomplete and threaten Syria’s future.”

A Syrian delegation led by the foreign and defense ministers, along with the head of intelligence, arrived in Saudi Arabia on their first official foreign trip, Syrian state media reported, citing a foreign ministry official.

Relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia have long been tense. Many Arab nations cut ties with Assad’s government after it relied on support from Iran and Russia to suppress uprisings. But the Arab League reinstated Syria in 2023, and regional leaders are increasingly open now to renewing diplomatic ties.

Abou AlJoud reported from Beirut, Lebanon.

A woman holds photos of four activists who disappeared during the war between opposition forces and Assad regime, at a protest demanding answers to their whereabouts, in Douma, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Activists and relatives take part in a protest demanding answers to whereabouts of four activists who disappeared during the war between opposition forces and Asasd regime, in Douma, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Activists and relatives take part in a protest demanding the whereabouts of four activists who disappeared during the war between opposition groups and former President Bashar Assad's forces, in Douma, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A woman holds a portrait of Razan Zaitouneh who disappeared during the war between opposition groups and former President Bashar Assad's forces, during a protest in Douma, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Syrian author Yassin Haj Saleh, husband of Samira Alkhalil, who disappeared during the war between opposition forces and Assad regime, takes part in a protest demanding answers to the whereabouts of her and other activists, in Douma, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Relatives take part in a protest demanding the whereabouts of four activists who disappeared during the war between opposition groups and former President Bashar Assad's forces, in Douma, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González, who the United States recognized as the winner of last year's presidential election, kicked off a tour of Latin America on Saturday, just days before President Nicolás Maduro is set to be sworn in for a third term in defiance of international pressure.

Hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, some waving their homeland's red, blue and yellow flag, filled the Plaza de Mayo outside Argentina's presidential palace in Buenos Aires. They were waiting for González to emerge from a meeting with Argentine President Javier Milei, a staunch supporter of the Venezuelan opposition.

González, a retired diplomat, fled into exile in Spain in September after a judge issued an arrest warrant following the July 28 presidential election, in which Maduro was declared the winner by the National Electoral Council, which is stacked with governing party loyalists.

In recent weeks, the opposition has been vowing that he would travel to Venezuela to be sworn in for the presidential term, which according to law must begin on Jan. 10. But he hasn't said how he plans to return or wrest power from Maduro, whose party controls all institutions and the military.

On Thursday, Maduro’s government raised the stakes even further, announcing a $100,000 reward for information on González’s whereabouts and plastering the wanted-like bulletin with the retired diplomat's photo on social media and the arrivals board at the country's main airport.

Upon arrival to the Argentine capital, where he twice served as Venezuela’s ambassador more than two decades ago, González posted on social media a short video message expressing solidarity with those imprisoned in Venezuela as part of a crackdown by Maduro.

He said that he would raise with Milei concerns about the well-being of five Maduro opponents who have been sheltering in the Argentine ambassador’s residence in Caracas for nearly 10 months — a diplomatic standoff that has embittered relations between Venezuela and Argentina.

The Biden administration and most European governments have rejected the election's official results, pointing out that authorities didn't provide detailed results as they have in past elections. Meanwhile, copies of tally sheets collected by the opposition from 85% of the nation’s electronic voting machines show that González prevailed by a more than two-to-one margin.

González, 75, was a previously unknown career diplomat when he was thrust into rallying the anti-Maduro coalition as a last-minute stand-in for opposition stalwart María Corina Machado, whom the government banned from running for office.

After speaking with Milei on Saturday, González is scheduled to cross the Rio de la Plata for a meeting with Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou.

A wanted sign of Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez is displayed on the list of departure flights at the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, near Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)