Outrage after Syria detains Prisons Museum co-founder Amer Matar

A founding member of the Syria Prisons Museum, Amer Matar, was detained by Syrian authorities overnight Wednesday as he attempted to leave the country, sparking outrage among colleagues and activists in Syria.

Matar was stopped by state security at the Al-Jdeideh border crossing with Lebanon, accused of smuggling files out of the country for "personal interests", with family and friends initially unable to contact him.

The ministry claimed that Matar, a well-known rights activist and journalist, received a formal notice to hand over state security documents to authorities and was detained after he ignored this order and attempted to flee the country.

Sources at the museum rejected the claims and told The New Arab that the team does not possess original, official records and its work is limited to documenting files via photographing papers found at prison sites, where tens of thousands of Syrians were disappeared by the regime of ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The museum also delivers any original documentation it finds to the National Commission for the Missing to help in fact-finding and accountability efforts.

Matar, who lives in Germany, was released on Thursday afternoon, but his passport was withheld and he was given a travel ban, sources said.

Robin Yassin-Kassab, author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War and a colleague of Matar, has rejected the ministry's claims and said the journalist has only ever been motivated by uncovering the truth about Syria's disappeared.

"I can tell you the ministry’s accusations against Amer and the smear campaign on social media against him are rubbish. I know him very well, I have worked with him for a very long time, and I know his motivations are good," Yassin-Kassab told The New Arab.

"It is a very sad irony that the time our new president of the post-revolutionary government was making this speech at the UN, which was celebrated across Syria, a human rights activist and someone working for transitional justice has been arbitrarily detained."

Matar, from Raqqa province, was a founding member of the Syria Prisons Museum and ISIS Prisons Museum that documents Syria's detention facilities and provides an interactive look at the harrowing conditions in regime jails, where torture, disease, and extrajudicial killings were routine.

He was also a key witness in the cases in Koblenz, Germany against Syrian regime intelligence officers, and has been a long-time advocate for families of missing detainees.

Matar was also a former detainee, while his brother was disappeared by the Islamic State group with his family still searching for information on his fate.

"​​​​Amer is motivated by his brother’s disappearance and always brings up the mothers of the detained who are waiting for their sons to return home, when we discuss work... so there is no way he would steal documents for personal use," Yassin-Kassab added.

At least 130,000 detainees were murdered by the Syrian regime in detention facilities between the start of the revolution in March 2011 and the fall of Bashar Al-Assad in December 2024, when notorious detention facilities such as Saydnaya were captured by advancing rebels, who liberated their remaining inmates.

Important files on the missing were reportedly stolen or destroyed as regime officials fled the country.

Tens of thousands of families are still waiting for information about their loved ones, who were held either by the Assad regime or other parties active in the war.

Over the past weeks, authorities uncovered underground dungeons and mass graves used by pro-regime militias in Homs province.