أرشيف الأخبار

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

DAMASCUS: A Syrian appeal court has upheld 30-month jail terms slapped on 12 opposition figures who called for democratic reforms, a human rights group said on Tuesday. “The appeal court rejected the motion submitted by defense lawyers for the opposition figures who signed the ‘Damascus Declaration,’” said the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “We believe the verdict is political and was issued on the basis of inquiries made by the intelligence services to silence all [democratic] voices,” the Observatory said in a statement.
Abdel-Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights, reacted by calling for a general amnesty for all political detainees and prisoners of conscience in Syria.
In late October, the 12 signatories of the Damascus Declaration which calls for democratic change were condemned in a court in the Syrian capital for “damaging the state.”
Author Ali Abdullah, Dr Walid Bunni, writer Akram Bunni, and former MP Riad Seif were among those convicted. – AFP

Wednesday, July 15,2009