Families for Freedom (FFF), an organisation fighting for the rights of detainees in Syria, have launched a campaign to call attention to the plight of Syrian detainees during the final days of the 2022 World Cup.
Under the hashtag #MissingWorldCup2022, families who have relatives detained by the Assad regime in Syria shared images of their loved ones in front of ongoing football matches at the stadium or at home.
The idea of the campaign is to remind people that "while they live their normal lives, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are denied simple rights, just to be normal and follow the World Cup," Hala Subhi, a member of FFF whose younger brother was detained in 2013, told .
The campaign also hopes to capitalise on the global attention put on the world cup to bring more awareness to the issue of detainees and that life in Syria is not safe, Subhi added.
About 136,000 people are in Syrian regime prisons, where they suffer from horrific conditions, including deliberate torture by security forces.
Families of detainees often have no idea of the whereabouts or fates of their relatives. Many resort to paying middlemen significant sums of money for information on their relatives – which easily could be falsified.
"We know nothing about him except for the contradicting news from the people that we pay money to so that they can give us mostly fake news. We got some news that he died, then that he is there and well," Subhi said.
The World Cup also holds a special place in many of the detainees' families' lives and brings back memories of watching football matches together.
Maimouna Al-Ammar recalls watching world cup matches on the roof of her building in Syria, where her and her family set up an improvised theatre.
“I would sit with our father and my brothers and watch it and have all the excitement and enjoyment during that time,” al-Ammar, a member of FFF whose two brothers and uncle are detained in Syria, told TNA.
"Iqbal [her younger brother] used to memorise statistics and results of matches. I couldn't believe how much he could memorise," al-Ammar said.
[Provided with permission Maimouna al-Ammar]
For some, these memories, once joyful, became a source of pain after the detention of their loved ones.
"Friday afternoons are the sound of football commentators that my father and family would listen to. I used to be annoyed by this. But now, I would avoid the football matches because the noise [of the match] reminds me of these memories …. I should have my family, including my brother, watching it with me," Subhi said.
Participating in the campaign has allowed some to reclaim these memories and turn football into a source of hope.
“This year the reason why I’m able to watch football again is because I feel I am not staying doing nothing, I am more resilient. And I want to share this feeling with others missing their loved ones,” Al-Ammar said.
Activists also hope that the campaign can lead to concrete policy changes.
In particular, FFF wants citizens to push policymakers to support an international body that would clarify the fate of detainees and provide support to victims and survivors.
"One of the campaign's goals is that everyone would know about the issue of Syrian detainees so that countries will vote to create an independent, international humanitarian mechanism to reveal the fate of the disappeared and secure their release," Mayasa Mohammad, a member of FFF whose husband was detained ten years ago, told TNA from Aleppo.
In August 2022, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the establishment of such a mechanism – but little has been done to put his suggestion into practice.
Despite the international community's inaction on the file of Syrian detainees, activists participating in the campaign hope that in some way, it will allow their loved ones to enjoy the campaign from afar.
"When my daughter heard that her father's face will be shown in front of the World Cup, she got so excited and happy," Mohammad said. "I hope somehow he knows that we're doing this for him."
"Iqbal definitely would have supported Morocco. Or maybe England," Al-Ammar said.
As for Subhi, she says her brother also would have supported Morocco.