Call for release of bloggers and journalists held for expressing views online

Reporters Without Borders reiterates its call for the release of Tal Al-Mallouhi, the 19-year-old high school student who has been held for the past nine months because of her blogging, and for the release of fellow bloggers Habib Saleh and Kamal Sheikhou ben Hussein and journalist Ali Al-Abdallah. “The Syrian authorities get rid of those who dare to express their views freely online by putting them behind bars,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The international pressure must be maintained so that these detainees are not forgotten. Monitoring and condemnation by the countries with which Syria has diplomatic relations must render the detention of these prisoners of conscience more of a problem than their release.” Arrested by the intelligence services in December 2009, student blogger Tal Al-Mallouhi is currently being held in Duma prison, 20 km northwest of Damascus, on a spying charge. Her continued detention has prompted condemnation abroad. Egypt’s 6 April Movement organised a demonstration in her support outside the Syrian embassy in Cairo on 19 September, while international and regional NGOs have called for her release (ANHRI and HRW links). Journalist Ali Al-Abdallah, who was not freed when he completed a 30-month jail sentence on 16 June, appeared before a Damascus military criminal court on 19 September. He is being prosecuted over an article posted online at the end of 2009, when he was in Adr prison in Damascus, in which he criticised the Islamic Republic of Iran’s religious system and Syria’s relations with Iran. At the 19 September hearing, the judge dropped a charge of “disseminating false information undermining national sentiment” (article 286 of the criminal code) but upheld the charge of “seeking to harm Syria’s relations with a foreign state” (article 278), which carries a sentence of three to 15 years in prison. Kamal Sheikhou ben Hussein has been held since 25 June, when he was arrested for trying to enter Lebanon using his brother’s passport. He had been banned from leaving the country in connection with the many articles he wrote for the All4Syria website. It is not known where he is being held. Habib Saleh was given a three-year jail sentence in March 2009 on a charge of “undermining national sentiment” (article 285 of the criminal code) for criticising the government in the articles he wrote regularly for Elaph (http://www.elaph.com), a pan-Arab news website that is censored in Syria because of its outspoken style of news reporting. His lawyer, Mohammad al-Hassani says the charge is applicable only in wartime. Writer and poet Firas Saad was released on 2 September on completing a four-year jail sentence for writing an article entitled “What did the Syrian army do in Israel’s war against Lebanon?” Reporters Without Borders wrote to Pierre Sellal, the secretary-general of the French foreign ministry, on 22 September in advance of his meeting with Syrian deputy economy minister Abdallah Dardari. Reporters Without Borders shared its concerns with Sellal and urged him to press for the release of the bloggers and journalists currently detained.