Partners
Freshfields
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP is a global law firm with a long-standing track record of successfully supporting the world’s leading national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments on groundbreaking and business-critical matters. The firm’s 2,800-plus lawyers deliver results worldwide through its offices and alongside leading local firms. For more information visit Freshfields.us.
Syrian British Consortium
The Syrian British Consortium (SBC) is a UK-based Syrian advocacy body which works towards establishing a channel of communication amongst diaspora-based Syrians and building a platform that amplifies their voices with the UK Government, Parliament and international policy-makers.
CJA’s investigation for this case has been supported by the following organizations:
Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) – a Syrian human rights organization working for meaningful justice and accountability for Syria that holds perpetrators accountable and addresses grievances, leading to lasting peace. SJAC collects documentation of violations from all available sources, stores it in a secure database, catalogues it according to human rights standards, and analyzes it using legal expertise and big data methodologies. Originally imagined as a central repository for documentation, SJAC has grown into a dynamic organization that is not only documenting the conflict, but engaging with justice mechanisms and policymakers, developing new technologies for human rights, searching for missing persons, and building the capacity of human rights defenders in Syria and around the globe.
Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research (SCLSR) – an independent, non-governmental, and non-profit rights organization that is concerned with the dissemination and establishment of principles of the human right principles and rule of law to rebuilding of the legal structure of the Syrian state through the publication of research and legal studies. SCLSR also works to establish the principles of justice by providing support and legal assistance to victims of violations and crimes. defending the detainees of opinion and conscience in Syria and works to hold human rights criminals accountable by processing and submitting files to competent jurisdictions and building the capacity of Syrian jurists.
Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) – an independent non-governmental non-profit organization. SCM seeks to build a society that guarantees freedom of expression and belief, human rights and justice. SCM’s vision is a democratic world based on justice, freedom, equality and respect for human rights and dignity.
Since establishment in 2004, SCM work to defend oppressed individuals due to their beliefs or opinions, as well as promoting human rights and supporting and developing independent, critical and professional media. SCM is in special consultative status with UN ECOSOC since 2011.
Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) – The Syrian Network for Human Rights is an independent human rights organization established in June 2011 that monitors and documents human rights violations in Syria. SNHR has documented over 25 violations in Syria, including extrajudicial killings, arrests, torture, forced displacement, prohibited and highly destructive ammunition, and other violations. SNHR has issued about 1300 reports, 340 statements, and thousands of news reports covering multiple patterns of human rights violations. It is a primary source of information for many United Nations bodies, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, and UNICEF, as well as international organizations, including the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and many others. The organization is also a primary source of information for many countries, including the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, and others, as well as being a trusted source for dozens of local, Arab, and international media outlets.
Caesar Files Group (CFG) – a voluntary and non-profit association whose mission is to document the violations committed in Syria by all parties in order to help Syrian society reach justice.
Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) – a 501(c)(3) formed in March of 2011 to respond to the Syrian dictatorship and its allies waging war on innocent civilians. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., SETF works tirelessly to bring an end to the killing in Syria through advocacy, humanitarian initiatives, and the pursuit of justice and accountability for war crimes.
Syrian Organizations and Activists
CJA is grateful for the insight and guidance shared by the following Syrian-led organizations, Syrian advocates, and other human rights defenders as we litigate this case.
Families for Freedom
Families for Freedom is the first movement that is led by families of the detainees and forcibly disappeared in Syria. Since it was founded, the movement has worked on community organisation, legal awareness and psychosocial support. It has also worked in connection with victims groups of arbitrary detention and forced disappearance to form a truth and justice charter to demand the immediate release of detainees, reveal the fate and whereabouts of the missing and forcibly disappeared and achieve transitional justice.
One of its top demands is to establish an international humanitarian mechanism to release the detainees and reveal the fate of the missing.
Wafa Ali Mustafa
Wafa Mustafa is a Syrian activist, journalist, and a survivor from detention. She left the country on 9 July 2013, exactly a week after her father was forcibly disappeared by the regime in Damascus. She moved to Turkey and began reporting on Syria for various media outlets. In 2016, she moved to Germany and continued her interrupted studies and graduated from Bard College Berlin. Mustafa has extensively lobbied the United Nations Security Council to call for the release of the names and the whereabouts of all the disappeared by the Syrian regime and other actors in the country. In her advocacy, Mustafa covers the impact of detention on young girls and women and families. Mustafa also campaigns for international recognition of Syrian refugees and against normalized international relations with the Assad regime.
Caesar Families Association
Established in Berlin in February 2018, the Caesar Families Association (CFA) is a group of families that have lost loved ones under torture, our loved ones became the victims of forced disappearance in the Syrian regime’s prisons. CFA identified relatives in the Ceasar photos which were leaked from the Syrian regime detention centres. CFA aims to unify our voices, demanding truth, justice, and restitution for the victims of torture and forced disappearance in Syria.
Ta’afi
Ta’afi is a Syrian survivors-led human rights organization that supports and protects survivors of enforced disappearances and victims of torture upon their release and settlement at a secure location. Ta’afi seeks to assist them so that they may continue to peacefully support human rights changes in Syria and advocate for justice and accountability
Action for Sama
Action For Sama was launched by Waad and Hamza al-Kateab after the incredible worldwide reaction to their BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary film, FOR SAMA. The Action For Sama campaign is run by a team of Syrian and campaign specialists, who believe in human rights, human dignity, and accountability. Alongside partners and allies, and embedded within public engagement, AFS focuses on two key themes within the documentary, Accountability for the attacks on healthcare facilities in Syria and Building understanding and empathy towards the Syrian Refugee Crisis.
Hala Subhi
Hala is a Syrian activist who took part in the nonviolent uprising in Aleppo, Syria in 2011.In 2013 after having to flee their home because of the conflict, her brother was forcibly disappeared. The family has never heard from him since then. Nothing stopped Hala’s fights for human rights. She was awarded a scholarship to study Global Health at UCL. She is interested in detention and forced disappearance as a public and global health matter. Through her work, she to advocates for the rights of detainees and their families of healthy lives; a thing that the continuation of detention practices would never allow.
Syrian Legal Development Programme (SLDP)
SLDP is a UK-based Syrian legal and non-governmental organization established in 2013 in response to international law violations in Syria. SLDP’s mandate focuses on addressing complex legal needs triggered by the conflict in order to fight impunity in a creative manner. SLDP’s International Legal Support Unit aims to build the capacity of Syrian Civil Society and Victims/Survivors and Families’ Associations in responding to international law issues related to the Syrian conflict and in engaging with influential stakeholders in order to advance accountability and victims’ rights to truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence. ILSU’s services include but are not limited to legal consultations, training and workshops, policy recommendations, legal assessments, and advocacy campaigns explicitly tailored for Syrian NGOs and victims and families’ groups to help them with their work on the ground and their documentation and legal advocacy efforts. You can read more about SLDP here.
Yasmine Nahlawi
Dr Yasmine Nahlawi (PhD Public International Law, Newcastle University) is a legal consultant with a focus on international legal mechanisms and processes pertaining to the Syrian conflict. Her more recent work, including with the Syrian British Consortium and the Atlantic Council, revolves around Syrian-led efforts for case-file building, knowledge production, and pursuit of accountability avenues. She has published widely on Syria, including her book “The Responsibility to Protect in Libya and Syria: Mass Atrocities, Human Protection, and International Law” (Routledge 2019).
Alexandra Lily Kather
Alexandra Lily Kather is an international justice practitioner whose work is focused on strengthening the strategic investigation and prosecution of intersectional dimensions of core international crimes. They work alongside affected communities supporting community-led leadership and participation in international justice processes and related advocacy. Their work contributed to advancing a successful prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes as crimes against humanity committed in government-run detention facilities in Syria in the Anwar R. case (Higher Regional Court of Koblenz, Germany) and the first ever successful prosecution of persecution of the Yazidi on intersecting grounds of religion and gender in the Sarah O. case (Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf, Germany).
