report: Syrian authorities arrest activist
International Herald Tribune, Tuesday, September 16, 2008      
According to the Syrian Organization for Human Rights, Syrian authorities have arrested democratic activist Majed Alloush and taken him to an undisclosed location. Detained on September 13th, Alloush was picked up from his home in the Deir al-Zour province in northeastern Syria. A respected member of the Syrian opposition, he has written numerous articles on "public issues" and boasts membership in the coalitional opposition group known as the Damascus Declaration. Twelve members of that group are standing trial in Syria on charges that include spreading false information and weakening national morale and three more are in detention. The Syrian Organization for Human Rights expresses concern for Alloush’s whereabouts and worry over his troublesome heart condition while in Syrian state custody.  >>


  SYRIA: Reporters without Borders delegation refused entry
Menassat, Tuesday, September 16, 2008      
On September 13th, a Reporters Without Borders (RSF) delegation led by Secretary-General Robert Ménard, TV journalist Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, and photographer François Daburon were denied entry to Syria at a Lebanese border crossing after meeting Lebanese journalists in Beirut. The Reporters Without Borders representatives and Poivre d’Arvor had hoped to cross into Syria to meet with the relatives of journalists imprisoned by the oppressive Assad regime. However, Syrian information Minister Mohsen Bilal refused the RSF delegation entry, reportedly saying: “They will not get visas, not now or ever.” The Syrian immigration officials at the Masnaa border gave no explicit justification for this refusal. Pressure from the Union of Journalists and the Syrian Center for the Media did not sway the Information Minister to rescind his decision. Reporters Without Borders claims it is not surprised by Bilal’s decision: “The (Syrian) government controls the movements of foreign journalists in Syria with great care in order to prevent any coverage of its human rights abuses.”  >>


  Syria jails 50 Kurds over rally
Gulf Times, Monday, September 15, 2008      
According to the National Organization for Human rights in Syria (NOHRS), a Damascus military court jailed 50 Kurds for between four and six months after a 2005 protest calling for a probe into the death of Kurdish scholar and human rights activist Sheikh Maashuk Khaznawi. Khaznaw initially vanished on May 10, 2005 and was reported dead by the Syrian government on June 1st. This proclamation caused a mass protest by Syrian Kurds on June 5th demanding that an independent commission examine the circumstances of Khaznawi’s death. This protest ended in the arrest of 50 Kurds and their two-month detention prior to bail. On September 14th, the aforementioned protestors were sentenced on charges of “inciting religious and racial dissent and conflict with different religions and groups of the nation.”  >>


  Syria blocks 160 websites: rights group
AFP, Tuesday, September 09, 2008      
According to the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, the Syrian government has blocked access to some 160 dissident websites since 2000 as part of a drive to censure the press and control Internet use. Those censored include sites run by Kurdish political parties, opposition groups, newspapers, human rights groups, and civil society organizations. With censorship on the increase, several sites have recently been blocked by Syrian authorities: these include “Akhbar Suria” for publishing photos showing where Hezbollah military chief Imad Mughnieh was assassinated by a car bomb in Damascus in February.  >>


  SYRIA: Call for release of writer Hammam Ahmad Haddad
Menassat, Tuesday, September 09, 2008      
Committees for the Defense of Democratic Freedoms and Human Rights in Syria (CDF) issued a statement on September 8th condemning the arrest of writer Hammam Ahmad Haddad by Syrian authorities. A prominent activist, Haddad was arrested without warrant and for an unknown reason on Sunday, September 7th. Since then, he has not been heard from or seen. CDF has expressed fear that the writer may be ill-treated or tortured in Syrian state custody. The group also condemned the widespread use of arbitrary arrests since the 1963 emergency law was enacted and calls on Syria to release immediately Haddad and all other political detainees.  >>


  Rights group: Syrian-Austrian arrested in Damascus
International Herald Tribune, Tuesday, September 09, 2008      
The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria (NOHRS) reports that the Syrian government has arrested an Austrian citizen of Syrian birth. This man (Mithal Mouhanna) was detained by Syrian authorities on August 18 before boarding a plane to Austria after a short Syrian vacation. Apparently, Mouhanna has previously visited Syria several times without incident. He was arrested due to suspicions that he had contact with dissident Syrian diplomat Mohammad Louai al-Hamwi. Al-Hamwi worked at the Syrian embassy in Austria before defecting last July. He has since joined a Germany-based anti-Syrian pro-democracy party. NOHRS now adamantly calls for the release of Mouhanna from custody.  >>


  Syria arrests two Kurdish leaders
OneNews, Monday, September 01, 2008      
According to the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, the Assad regime has arrested two Syrian-Kurdish leaders known for promoting Kurdish rights in the oppressed Middle Eastern state: Talal Mohammad and Mashaal Tammo. Mohammed is a prominent member of the banned Wifaq Party, an offshoot of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which is also active in Turkey and Iraq. He was arrested without warrant in northeastern Syria last week and has not been heard from since. Tammo was arrested earlier and is a well-known official in the banned Future Movement, a Sunni group advocating equal rights for Syria's million-strong Kurdish minority. On August 27, he was charged with committing aggression, belonging to an organization that aims to change the basis of society, causing racial and sectarian tension, and arming Syrians to start civil war -- the lattermost accusation carrying the death penalty. Together, the arrests of Mohammed and Tammo have been roundly condemned by the United States. They also precede a planned visit between Syrian President Assad and French President Nicholas Sarkozy as part of the former’s attempt to end Syrian global isolation.  >>


  Syria: Exiled former vice president sentenced to life in prison
Al Bawaba, Saturday, August 30, 2008      
Former Syrian vice-president and chief of the National Salvation Front opposition group Abdul Halim Khaddam has been found guilty by a Syrian military court of lying to U.N. officials investigating Syrian involvement with the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in February, 2005. Khaddam, who himself left Syria in 2005 after breaking with the ruling Assad regime, has claimed that the Syrian President threatened Prime Minister Hariri before he was assassinated in a car bombing in Beirut. The lawyer who brought the case against Khaddam said the First Military Criminal Court convicted him in absentia on Aug. 17 of a dozen charges in total (including conspiring with a foreign country to carry out "aggression against Syria”) and sentenced him to life in prison and hard labor. Consequently, Syria intends to ask Interpol to arrest and indict Khaddam at the earliest opportunity.  >>


  Syria: Kurdish writer-activist 'to stand trial'
Adnkronis International, Tuesday, August 26, 2008      
According to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, Syrian Kurdish writer and prominent rights activist Mashaal al-Tammu is to stand trial for crimes against the Syrian state. The 50-year-old official spokesman for the Kurdish Future opposition movement was seen by an observer entering a Damascus courthouse on August 26th. This was the first sighting of al-Tammu since he disappeared on August 15th while leaving the northern Syrian city of Kubani for Damascus. Although Al-Tammu's car was found close to the armed forces' headquarters in Aleppo, Syrian security services denied claims by human rights groups that they were involved in his disappearance. Human rights lawyers are currently evaluating the situation and trying to determine if al-Tammu has been ordered to stand trial before a civilian or a military court.  >>


  Public trial gives rare glimpse into Syrian justice
Reuters UK, Tuesday, August 26, 2008      
The public trial of 13 Damascus Declaration dissidents that began last month continued again on August 26th. The proceedings were as follows: The judge read out the charges and asked the defendants if they had anything to say. All 13 said they are innocent. Senior opposition figure Riad Seif spoke first: "Our case is about freedom of opinion. It is not a criminal one. We demand a national program for democratic change that begins with the right of expression.” Writer and Syrian prison veteran of 17 years Akram al-Bunni then complained to the judge that he had not been allowed enough meetings with his lawyer. His colleague Walid al-Bunni, a physician who already spent five years behind bars on other charges, demanded to know the basis for the charges against him and his compatriots. The judge declined to respond to either comment. He then gave the defendants 15 minutes to see their families and adjourned the trial until September 27th. In their private meetings, the defendants told their relatives they were receiving enough food and medicine in prison. However, they also said that the health of fellow political prisoner Kamal Labwani was fast deteriorating.  >>