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Syrian Activist Gets Jailtime
AP, January 1,
2008
DAMASCUS, Syria
(AP) — A Syrian criminal court on Monday convicted a
political activist of insulting the regime and contacting
"hostile parties," sentencing him 18 months in jail, a human
rights group said.
The court
sentence Faiq al-Mir to three years then commuted half of
it, the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, or
NOHR, said in a statement.
A member of the
outlawed Syrian Democratic People Party, al-Mir was arrested
in December 2006 after visiting Lebanon to offer condolences
to the family of assassinated Lebanese politician George
Hawi, a critic of Syria's role in the neighboring country.
The charges
against al-Mir also included spreading false information
that can weaken national feelings, fomenting riots, showing
overt hostility to the state's policy and contacting hostile
parties, including a coalition of anti-Syrian Lebanese
politicians.
There was no
immediate comment from the Syrian government, which rarely
comments on the detention and prosecution of suspects wanted
in political or security-related cases.
Al-Mir will
likely be released within a month, as the time he already
has spent in jail counts in the sentence against him, NOHR
said. The group condemned the verdict as "outrageous," and
said it amounted to infringement of individual freedoms.
Previously,
al-Mir had spent just over 10 years in jail as a political
detainee between 1989-1999.
Since taking
office in 2000, Syrian President Bashar Assad has released
hundreds of political prisoners, but also clamped down on
pro-democracy activists, showing there are limits to the
dissent he is willing to tolerate. |
