{"id":246,"date":"2011-05-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T00:00:00","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=246","title":{"rendered":"Syria: Human rights defenders arrested in recent crackdown, others in hiding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nSyria: Human rights defenders arrested in recent
\ncrackdown, others in hiding<\/strong><\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nAlkarama, 06 May 2011\n<\/p>\n

\nSyrian human rights defenders are being targeted by the
\nSyrian authorities as protests escalate across the country. Haytham Al-Maleh
\nand Razan Zaitouni are sought after by the Syrian authorities and are currently
\nin hiding, while Fayez Sara, Dana Jawabra and Hassan Abdel Azim are all
\ncurrently in custody. These men are long-standing human rights defenders and
\nare leading voices of Syrian protests. They have all either been previously
\narrested and served jail sentences or are currently under a travel ban.\n<\/p>\n

\nOn 4 May 2011, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the Special
\nRapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders regarding these five
\ncases. Alkarama fears for their physical and mental integrity, as they are at
\nrisk of torture and ill-treatment by the Syrian security services. Haitham
\nAl-Maleh and Fayez Sara are amongst many Syrian activists to have gone into
\nhiding to avoid being arrested.\n<\/p>\n

\nThousands of people continue to be arrested, tortured and
\nkilled for their alleged participation in, or calls for, peaceful
\ndemonstrations. Despite the abolition of the emergency law and the State
\nSecurity Court on 20 April 2011, arbitrary arrests and human rights abuses
\ncontinue to be committed by the authorities with total impunity. Human rights
\nactivist and journalists are the security forces main targets, and have been
\nforced to go into hiding to avoid being arrested. Alkarama is informed that
\nSyrian security forces have lists of human rights defenders whom they are
\nseeking to arrest at their homes.\n<\/p>\n

\nHere are the personal details of the five human rights
\ndefenders in question:\n<\/p>\n

\n–       
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Mr Haitham Al-Maleh (<\/strong>‫<\/span><\/strong>\u00e5\u00ed\u00cb\u00e3 \u00c7\u00e1\u00e3\u00c7\u00e1\u00cd<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>)<\/strong> is an 80 year-old leading Syrian
\nhuman rights activist and lawyer. As an outspoken critic of the government, he
\nhas been the subject of multiple arrests and was recently tried and sentence to
\nthree years imprisonment by the Syrian authorities on the grounds of having
\n"spread false information" and "weakening the national
\nsentiment". He was released on 8 March 2011 following a year and a half of
\ndetention, he remains threatened by security forces, and is currently in
\nhiding. Alkarama had already previously worked on his case, informing the
\nWorking Group on Arbitrary Detention of his imprisonment – which was found to
\nbe arbitrary. He is currently being sought for arrest.\n<\/p>\n

\n \n<\/p>\n

\n–       
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Mr Fayez Sara (<\/strong>‫<\/span><\/strong>\u00dd\u00c7\u00ed\u00d2 \u00d3\u00c7\u00d1\u00c9<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>)<\/strong> is a well-known 61 year-old Syrian
\nwriter and journalist. He was arrested on Monday 11 April 2011 in Damascus,
\nafter having participated to a meeting of the National Council for the
\n"Damascus Declaration". He was arrested in 2008 and detained for two
\nyears for having signed the declaration, which called for the emergency law to
\nbe lifted and the established right to freedom of expression and assembly.\n<\/p>\n

\n \n<\/p>\n

\n \n<\/p>\n

\n–       
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Ms Razan Zaitouni (<\/strong>‫<\/span><\/strong>\u00d1\u00d2\u00c7\u00e4 \u00d2\u00ed\u00ca\u00e6\u00e4\u00c9<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>)<\/strong> is a 34 year-old lawyer whose clients
\nare political prisoners. She is the founder of the Syrian Human Rights
\nOrganization and is banned from travelling outside the country. In recent
\nweeks, she has come under considerable harassment from security forces. Ms
\nZaitouni had to leave her home and has been in hiding ever since. Security
\nagents tried to arrest her husband, Wael Al-Hamada, also a political activist,
\nfrom his work place, but he managed to escape. Her brother-in-law, Mr Abdel
\nRahman Al-Hamada, 22,<\/strong> was however arrested at their house and remains
\ndisappeared to date. Alkarama intends to submit his case to the relevant UN
\nHuman Rights Special Procedures.\n<\/p>\n

\n \n<\/p>\n

\n–       
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Ms Dana Jawabra (<\/strong>‫<\/span><\/strong>\u00cf\u00c7\u00e4\u00c7 \u00cc\u00e6\u00c7\u00c8\u00d1\u00c9<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>)<\/strong> is a 39 year-old engineer, journalist
\nand human rights campaigner. She was arrested on 16 March while taking part in
\na silent protest in Damascus to demand the release of the thousands of
\npolitical prisoners in Syria. Ms Jawabra was released on 27 March and
\nrearrested on 3 May 2011 by secret police agents outside her home in Damascus.
\nShe remains disappeared to date.\n<\/p>\n

\n–       
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Mr Hassan Abdel Azim (<\/strong>‫<\/span><\/strong>\u00cd\u00d3\u00e4 \u00da\u00c8\u00cf\u00c7\u00e1\u00da\u00d9\u00ed\u00e3<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>)<\/strong> is an 81 year-old lawyer and human
\nrights activist, Secretary General of the Arab Socialist Union party and
\nspokesman for the National Democratic Rally, a left-leaning opposition party.
\nHe was arrested in Damascus on 30 April 2011 from his office by security
\nforces, who took him to an unknown destination. They did not provide any legal
\ndocument to explain the reasons for his arrest, despite the lifting of
\nemergency rule.\n<\/p>\n

\nAccording to sources, many other human rights campaigners
\nfrom across Syria have also been arrested and threatened as part of the crackdown
\non protests. Peaceful demonstrations, which began in mid-March 2011, are
\ncalling for a significant improvement to the human rights situation in Syria
\nand end to corruption. Despite putting themselves at risk, Syrian rights
\ncampaigners continue to criticise the security forces for having resorted to
\nviolence to quell peaceful protestors.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe pattern of violence and general human rights violations
\nis on the rise and it is becoming clear that the problem has now reached a
\nsystematic and widespread level.\n<\/p>\n

\nAlkarama ask the Syrian authorities to immediately remedy
\nthe situation by releasing all detainees and putting an end to all harassment
\nagainst human rights defenders. We also ask the Syrian government to take
\nappropriate sanctions against those who mistreated or arrested human rights
\ndefenders, and to make sure that they respect Human Rights Council resolution
\nS-16\/1, which calls on Syria to "immediately cease any intimidation,
\npersecution or arbitrary arrests of individuals, including lawyers, human rights
\ndefenders and journalists".<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nSyria: Human rights defenders arrested in recent
\ncrackdown, others in hiding<\/strong><\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nSyrian human rights defenders are being targeted by the
\nSyrian authorities as protests escalate across the country. Haytham Al-Maleh
\nand Razan Zaitouni are sought after by the Syrian authorities and are currently
\nin hiding, while Fayez Sara, Dana Jawabra and Hassan Abdel Azim are all
\ncurrently in custody. These men are long-standing human rights defenders and
\nare leading voices of Syrian protests. They have all either been previously
\narrested and served jail sentences or are currently under a travel ban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}