Several former volunteers in the Syrian (White Helmets) civil defense organization were arrested in Damascus countryside, according to witnesses.
Akram al-Hajj[1], a former media official of the “White Helmets” in Ad Dumayr city, said to STJ on September 26, 2018, that the security services in the city arrested the two former volunteers Mohammed Saad Abu al-Majd on September 21, 2018, and Hussein Talaa earlier the same month. The source added that the city's air intelligence service had taken all former White Helmets volunteers to investigate them, although they had signed a reconciliation/settlement agreement following the Syrian regular forces’ taking control over the city on April 23, 2018.
In Douma, Hassan Amer[2], a (White Helmets) volunteer said to STJ on September 26, 2018, that Syrian regular forces had arrested two former volunteers while leaving Douma towards a shelter in Adra Labor city, and their fate still unknown.
Security apparatus in Douma including the General Intelligence, Military Intelligence and the Air Intelligence Services, summoned all the former volunteers in the White Helmets for intensive investigations and released them successively. "
It is worth mentioning that the reconciliation/settlement agreement signed by people of the Qalamun and Eastern Ghouta, recently controlled by Regime forces, is nearing termination, as it started in April 2018 and will expire in early October 2018. This agreement supposed to protect its holder from arrest or any other harassments. The media activist Yusuf Bustani[3] explains that many of those who signed this agreement did not know what terms it provided for. The activist quoted one of the signatories on the agreement in Eastern Ghouta who said: “They made me sign on 15 blank stamped papers which they claimed to be the settlement agreement”.
Security forces have already conducted arrests among former White Helmets volunteers in Homs and Daraa.[4]
[1] Recently displaced to northern Syria From Ad Dumayr city.
[2] Recently displaced to northern Syria from Douma city.
[3] Recently displaced to northern Syria from Eastern Ghouta.
[4] “Security forces arrest former White Helmets volunteers in Homs and Daraa, STJ, September 15, 2018; https://stj-sy.org/en/view/744 , (Last visit: September 26, 2018).