[13][14][15] Through the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria,[16] Qurabi has verified and documented reports of torture, ill-treatment, forced disappearance, arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention.
He has criticized the lack of judicial independence and arbitrary procedures that have systematically resulted in violations of the right to fair trial, and described Syria's multi-layered security apparatus which continues to detain people without arrest warrants and frequently refuses to disclose their whereabouts for weeks and sometimes months – in effect forcibly disappearing them.
He has brought attention to the sub-standard health and sanitation conditions of Syrian prisons, and described and documented methods of torture and abuse of prisoners including the use of electric shock; pulling out fingernails; burning genitalia; beating, sometimes while the victim was suspended from the ceiling; dousing victims with freezing water and beating them in extremely cold rooms; hyper-extending the spine; and bending detainees into the frame of a wheel and whipping exposed body parts.
The arrest came after establishing the background forum for dialogue and democratic activity within the National Action Committee and the city of Aleppo to participate in sit-ins and demonstrations demanding democracy and civil liberties.
12 March 2006: Arrested by the Syrian security forces at Damascus International Airport, as he was coming back from two conferences on human rights and democratic reforms in Syria, which were held in Paris and Washington D.C.