Since Fares Maamou’s arrest by Syrian security forces in 2012, no news has emerged about the journalist’s status or whereabouts. Maamou was a contributor to the Damascus-based Shaam News Network and posted tens of thousands of videos documenting the unrest in Syria since the start of the uprising in March 2011. The network’s footage was used by international news organizations, such as Al-Jazeera and the BBC.
Maamou was arrested in Homs, where he had been covering events in the neighborhoods of Deir Baalba and al-Rabee al-Arabi for the network, according to accounts from local activists and press freedom groups.
Maamou’s name does not appear on Violations Documentation Center’s list of 8,000 detainees who were killed under torture in prisons run by the Syrian government. A 2021 report by the London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights found that over 100,000 people have been forcibly disappeared in Syria since 2011, the vast majority by the Syrian regime.
In late 2024, CPJ emailed the then-Syrian mission to the United Nations and the then-Syrian ministry of defense for information on the status of imprisoned Syrian journalists but received no response. The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fell on December 8 after opposition groups launched a surprise offensive and the whereabouts of Mamou remained unclear in early 2025.