{"id":744,"date":"2012-07-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T00:00:00","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=744","title":{"rendered":"Syria: The Gulf Centre for Human Rights calls for the immediate release of Bassel Khartabil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Press release<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Beirut, 16 July 2012&#8211;<\/strong> On 15 March 2012, information  technology expert <strong>Bassel Khartabil<\/strong> was detained in a wave of arrests in  the Mazzeh district of Damascus. He remains in detention despite the fact that  no charges have been brought against him. <\/p>\n<p>On 3 July 2012 the &ldquo;Free Bassel&rdquo; campaign was  launched calling for his release. The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) calls  on the international community to join the campaign and to demand that his  arbitrary detention be ended immediately. <\/p>\n<p>Bassel Khartabil is an information technology teacher and  computer engineer specialising in open source software development. He is a  well-known contributor to global software and culture communities like Creative  Commons, Mozilla Firefox, Wikipedia, Open Clip Art Library, Fabricatorz, and  Sharism. <\/p>\n<p>Bassel Khartabil has been in detention for five months,  however, no information has yet been released by the authorities concerning any  charges against him. Despite their on-going efforts his family have been denied  any contact with him or information concerning his condition. It was recently  revealed that he is being held in Kafer Sousa security detention branch 291. <\/p>\n<p>This information has caused great concern for his physical  and psychological safety, as detainees held there have been subjected to torture  and inhumane treatment as uncovered in the recent Human Rights Watch report &ldquo;  Syria: Torture Centres revealed&rdquo;. <br \/>\n  As part of the campaign a letter was released calling on the  Syrian authorities to immediately ensure the release of Bassel Khartabil.&nbsp;  Signatories of the letter include Joi Ito, Chairman of the Board for Creative  Commons, Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School Professor and over 580 others from  around the world. <\/p>\n<p>The GCHR believes that the arrest of Bassel Khartabil and  his on-going detention are directly related to his work in relation to  information sharing and in promoting freedom of information and expression. The  GCHR calls on the international community to join the campaign to secure his  release by logging onto <a href=\"http:\/\/freebassel.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/freebassel.org\/<\/a>,  and signing the letter demanding the Syrian authorities to ensure his immediate  release.<br \/>\n  <strong>The Gulf Centre for Human Rights is an independent centre  and has been registered in Ireland. The Centre works to strengthen support for  human rights defenders and independent journalists in Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait,  Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Source URL: <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gc4hr.org\/news\/view\/197\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.gc4hr.org\/news\/view\/197<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Gulf Centre for Human Rights \u00a0&#8211; Press release<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Beirut, 16 July 2012&#8211;<\/strong> On 15 March 2012, information  technology expert <strong>Bassel Khartabil<\/strong> was detained in a wave of arrests in  the Mazzeh district of Damascus. He remains in detention despite the fact that  no charges have been brought against him. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","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\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}