Arrests and Intimidation of Syrian Human Rights Activists Date: 09-04-2008
Author: Damascus Center for Theoretical and Civil Rights Studies
Arrests and Intimidation of Syrian Human Rights Activists
 
 
Syrian government security forces persistently and systematically threaten human rights activists and others working to uphold basic civil liberties in Syria
 
Most recently, the military security forces arrested Mr. Mohammed Badee Dakalbab on March 2, 2008 stemming from his activism on behalf of the National Organization for Human Rights.  Mr. Dakalbab was a prisoner of conscious for six years.  Arrested in 2000, he was tried by a kangaroo court and sentenced to fifteen years in jail after a one day trial. He was later released after the presidential amnesty in 2005. Mr. Dakalbab was born June 18, 1949. He has a degree in English Literature and holds employment with a children's TV station "Space Tunes."
 
In another unjust incarceration of those working on behalf of human and civil rights inside Syria, Mr. Ahmad Haji Alkhalaf remains under Syrian government arrest arising from an article he authored critical of the educational system in his town.
 
The Damascus Center for Theoretical and Civil Rights Studies (DCTCRS) calls for the immediate release of all human rights activists including Mr. Dakalbab and Mr. Alkhalaf. The DCTCRS also calls on the Syrian government to stop its assault on human rights activists and to halt the draconian martial law policies and procedures that continually subject activists to repetitive summons, physical assaults, extrajudicial arrests and interrogations.
 
The center calls upon all human rights organizations and activists to pressure the Syrian government to stop its onslaught on human ights activists and other peaceful political dissenters, and to release all prisoners of conscience.
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