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Syria sentences democracy activists

munaeem | 14 May, 2007 07:47

via Yahoo News :

"A Syrian court sentenced four pro-democracy campaigners, including one of Syria’s most respected writers, to prison terms Sunday as part of President’s Bashar Assad’s latest crack down on dissent.

"We are not criminals, we are patriotic people," said writer Michel Kilo from behind bars after Judge Zaher al-Bakri of the Damascus Criminal Court read out the verdict.

He and Mahmoud Issa, a translator, were convicted and then sentenced to three years in prison each for spreading false news, weakening national feeling and inciting sectarian sentiments. Two other activists, Suleiman Shummar and Khalil Hussein, were sentenced in absentia for 10 years in jail on similar charges.

The rulings bring to six the number of government critics and human rights campaigners to be convicted and sentenced in the last month, despite American and European calls for Assad to stop harassing activists and release political prisoners.

Yazan Badran comments :

"It is by far, the worst crackdown on civil liberties and activists in the country since 2001, when the authorities cracked down on what has since been called “Damascus Spring”."

A local human rights group says that Mr Kilo was put on trial for signing a petition published in a leading anti-Syrian Lebanese newspaper.

The petition condemned political assassinations to silence dissent.

Hundreds of Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals signed the document, which was published in the Nahar newspaper.

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