Ribal Al-Assad calls on the Syrian regime to act on Human Rights Watch report and end repression
Monday, 24 January 2011
Human Rights Watch has said that Syria's authorities were among the worse violators of human rights last year, jailing lawyers, torturing opponents and using violence to repress ethnic Kurds.
The organization's annual report referred to lawyers, such as Mohannad al-Hassani, who was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, as "heroes" for championing the plight of Syria's political prisoners and paying for it with their own freedom.
Another lawyer, Radeef Mustafa, who is a member of the Kurdish Human Rights Committee, faced disciplinary proceedings by a government-controlled lawyers' syndicate.
The report said, "To date, Syrian officials have denied all registration requests from human rights groups."
The report added Human Rights Watch received "credible reports that security agencies arbitrarily detained dissidents and criminal suspects, held them incommunicado ... and subjected them to ill-treatment and torture...at least five detainees died in custody in 2010, with no serious investigations into their deaths by the authorities."
Syria's Kurds, who number about 1 million out of a population of 21 million, were subjected to "systematic discrimination," including refusal to give citizenship to an estimated 300,000 Kurds born in Syria.
"There can be no rule of law in Syria as long as its feared security services remain above the law," the report said.
Commenting on the report, Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said "Syria's bleak human rights record stood out in a region where bad performers are legion."
Commenting on the report, ODFS Director Ribal Al-Assad, said:
"The report shows that the Syrian regime continues to repress its people and has no respect for basic human rights. I call on the regime to end repression and injustice, to release all political prisoners, and to allow freedom of expression and association. This will help Syria move towards democracy and freedom peacefully."