A/HRC/22/59 6. Twenty two interviewees were themselves arbitrarily arrested and recounted a range of detention-related violations attributable to Government forces and affiliated militias. In a minority of cases, young men and boys were arrested either at or immediately following demonstrations. No interviewee reported being informed of the reasons for his arrest. 7. Individuals were held incommunicado for extended periods without their families being notified, they were forced to pay bribes for their release, were held solely for purposes of extracting information from them, or to force others to surrender. No interviewee was provided legal counsel, though some managed to secure counsel through their own efforts. 8. Questions asked during interrogations strongly suggested that, in the majority of cases, interviewees had been targeted for arrest. One man, a bread seller from a northern governorate, was interrogated about allegedly supplying bread to anti-Government armed groups. Other interviewees were questioned specifically about providing fuel or medical aid to the armed groups. Three interviewees, two of whom were children, stated they had been taken off the street after participating in demonstrations. One interviewee, a low-ranking soldier in the Syrian army, was accused of sympathising with the opposition by fellow soldiers. In only three cases, was it unclear why the interviewees had been arrested, though later questioning suggested that the interrogating agency believed that they were members of anti-Government armed groups or that they were assisting these groups. 9. One such detainee from Dara’a was arrested on a Friday in July after watching a demonstration that erupted after prayers. Four armed men in military uniforms seized him from a side street, blindfolded and handcuffed him, and took him in a military jeep to checkpoint where he was seriously maltreated. “Give me the names of the members of the coordination committees who mobilised you to demonstrate?” When he did not provide a name he was physically assaulted. 10. In ten cases, interviewees reported being taken before a judge and given an order for release. In eight cases, however, interviewees stated that they or their family members had paid bribes in order to secure their release. One interviewee, a defector who had worked at one of the intelligence branches in Hama, stated that in many cases bribes were the primary motivating factor behind the arrests: “Detainees pay money to secure their release. It is a systematic practice in Syria nowadays. Arresting people is done very often for this particular purpose.” 11. The commission recorded two cases in Damascus (700,000 August, 1 million, no date), 1 in Dara’a (200,000, no date); two in Latakia (500,000 November, and 300,000 August), one in Homs (350,000 July), and two in Aleppo (100,000 July and 350,000 September). 12. One young man from Dara’a, arrested in April, was released in September, after his father sold land and paid 300,000 Lira (approximately 3,000 USD) to his Government captors. Similar accounts were received from Latakia where both Shabbiha and security forces arrested people and released them only after bribes were paid. 13. At other times, it was neither information nor money the captors sought. The security forces holding one former Latakia resident stated to his brother through intermediaries that “unless you surrender, your brother will remain in detention.” Multiple accounts corroborated the practice of arresting someone else in the family, if the person wanted was not at home. 14. Official statistics on the number of detainees and detention centres have yet to be provided by the Government. It did, however, provide periodically information concerning the release of 2,289 detainees over the reporting period. The information was accompanied with the note that those released “have surrendered themselves and their weapons, and GE.13-10627 61