{"id":1585,"date":"2014-02-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/?p=1585","title":{"rendered":"PEACEFUL ACTIVISTS MUST BE RELEASED"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nOn the second anniversary of the arrest and detention of  peaceful activist Mazen Darwish and two of his colleagues, Amnesty  International reiterates its call on the Syrian authorities to release the  three men as well as all other activists held solely for peacefully exercising  their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association.<span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nMazen Darwish is the head of the Syrian Centre for Media and  Freedom of Expression (SCM). His colleagues, Hussein Gharir and Hani al-Zitani,  are staff members of the same organization. All three were arrested on 16  February 2012 during a raid on the SCM&rsquo;s offices by Syrian Air Force  Intelligence, along with a number of others present there at the time. The  three men spent months in conditions amounting to enforced disappearance, and  Amnesty International understands that Mazen Darwish and Hussein Gharir were  tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention.<span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nMazen Darwish, Hussein Gharir and Hani al-Zitani, along with two  colleagues who were conditionally released on 6 February 2013, Mansour al-Omari  and Abd al-Rahman Hamada, are standing trial before the Anti-Terrorism Court in  Damascus because of their work to promote and protect human rights in Syria.  They were indicted on 27 February 2013. Amnesty International calls on the  Syrian authorities to drop all charges against the five men.<span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThey are accused of &ldquo;publicizing terrorist acts&rdquo; under Article 8  of the Anti-Terrorism Law. Other charges relate to their publication of studies  on the human rights situation in Syria and the documentation of cases of people  detained, subjected to enforced disappearance and killed in the context of the  Syrian unrest. Their next court session is scheduled for 10 March 2014.<span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAmnesty International considers the ongoing detention and trial  of these peaceful activists as evidence of the ongoing systematic repression  against anyone speaking out against human rights violations in Syria. The  organization has previously criticized the overbroad Anti-Terrorism Law,  enacted by President Bashar al-Assad in 2012, under which Mazen Darwish and his  colleagues, as well as other peaceful activists, are being tried.<span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nMore broadly, Amnesty International calls on the Syrian  authorities to bring recognizable, criminal charges against any person in their  custody or release them. Those charged should be promptly referred to trials  that comply with international standards. Anyone deprived of their liberty must  be given immediate access to their family, lawyers and medical attention.<span> <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nWhile the majority of abuses committed in Syria since the  outbreak of unrest in March 2011 have been at the hands of government forces,  serious human rights abuses, including war crimes, have been committed by armed  opposition groups, including some affiliated to al-Qa&rsquo;ida and some affiliated  to the Free Syrian Army. These include abductions, arbitrary detention, torture  or other ill-treatment and unlawful killings. Amnesty International calls on  all armed opposition groups to set free persons, including women and children,  taken hostage for exercising their right to freedom of expression or for merely  belonging to religions or sects perceived as supporting the Syrian government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the second anniversary of the arrest and detention of peaceful activist Mazen Darwish and two of his colleagues, Amnesty International reiterates its call on the Syrian authorities to release the three men as well as all other activists held solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}