A/HRC/21/50 Annex VII [English only] Arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance 1. The commission continued to receive first-hand accounts of arbitrary arrest and detention, predominantly of men and boys. During this reporting period, 25 people were interviewed who alleged that they had been arbitrarily arrested and unlawfully detained by Government forces and Shabbiha. A further five interviews were conducted with defectors who stated that, while in active service, they had observed arbitrary arrests and detentions. 2. According to information received from the Government, over 10,000 people have been released since February 2011, pursuant to four amnesties, including 275 detainees released on 10 July 2012. The Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolution 2043 (2012), noted that UNSMIS had observed the release of 183 detainees in Dar‘a and Damascus on 31 May 2012, and 285 detainees in Damascus, Dar‘a, Hama, Idlib and Deir el-Zour on 14 June 2012. 3. Official statistics on the number of detainees as well as the number of detention centres have yet to be provided by the Government. The Commission noted that, as of 25 June 2012, UNSMIS had received and cross-checked information on 2,185 detainees and 97 places of detention across the Syrian Arab Republic. Syrian NGOs have put the number of those currently detained as high as 26,000. 4. Given the current lack of access to the country, the commission is not able to independently confirm numbers of those arrested and detained during the reporting period. I. Findings 5. The majority of arrests occurred in four contexts: arrests of those believed to be planning to defect or who had otherwise refused to follow orders (usually to open fire on civilians); arrests of persons in house searches; arrests of persons at checkpoints; and arrests of protesters, either at or immediately subsequent to the protests. A minority of cases were reported where people were arrested randomly in the street in areas where there were no active hostilities at the time. Four of those so arrested and detained were women. Two were children, a boy of 14 and a girl of nine. 6. Eight of those interviewed were members of the Government forces at the time of arrest. Six of these stated that they had been arrested on suspicion of planning to defect. Two others stated their arrests had been a consequence of their refusing orders to fire on civilians in Idlib (February 2012) and in Homs (May 2012) respectively. Of those arrested on suspicion of planning to defect, one stated that he had been found to be in contact with anti-Government armed groups. Most, stated that they were not informed of the basis for the suspicions. One noted that he had been arrested as part of a mass arrest of 60 Sunni soldiers in Aleppo in April 2012. Three of those arrested were detained for over two months with one moved among eight different detention facilities. 7. According to testimonies received, arrests made during house searches, were conducted by military and security forces. The commission received corroborated accounts of arrests taking places during house searches in the towns of Ibdita (Idlib) in February 2012 and of Ar-Rastan (Homs) in March 2012. House searches appeared to target specific wanted persons. As described in multiple interviews, individuals were sought because of 83