SYRIA: Imprisoned activists call for hunger strike

Photo: SEDC

Leading human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni has been on hunger strike in prison since 17 May

DAMASCUS, 6 June 2006 (IRIN) - Over a dozen of the country's highest-profile imprisoned activists – including ten people arrested in the past three weeks following a public appeal to Syria to improve relations with Lebanon – are to call a hunger strike, the brother of one of the detained activists told IRIN. Akram al-Bunni, whose brother Anwar has been on a hunger strike in Adra prison, 20km north of Damascus, since his arrest on 17 May, said: “Anwar stopped his hunger strike on 4 June. But 14 other activists in Adra have now agreed to launch a mass hunger strike on 10 June.” Al-Bunni added that his brother appeared to have been beaten while in detention, but said he had not suffered any other forms of torture. Anwar al-Bunni, a leading human rights lawyer, was recently detained along with nine other activists, including prominent writer Michel Kilo. The arrests followed the publication of the so-called “Damascus-Beirut Declaration”, in which some 300 Syrian and Lebanese civil society figures called on Syria to improve relations with Lebanon. The call was echoed on 17 May, when the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1680 calling on Damascus to open an embassy in Beirut and demarcate the border between the two neighbours. According to a 31 May statement by Amnesty International, the ten men were charged with weakening nationalist sentiment and inciting sectarian strife, charges which carry maximum jail terms of three years. The 14 hunger strikers will include journalist Ali Abdullah and his son Mohammed, arrested in March and due to be tried in a military court this month; Fateh Jamous, a prominent member of the Communist Workers' Party, arrested in May; and Kamal Labwani, founder of the Liberal Democratic Union, arrested last November. The current crackdown on civil society activists, the widest since 2001, prompted a rare show of intervention by the EU, which issued a statement on 19 May urging Syria to “immediately release all prisoners of conscience”. The EU went on to criticise what it described as the “substantially deteriorated” human rights situation in Syria since the beginning of the year. In response, the foreign ministry summoned EU ambassador Frank Hesske to Damascus on 20 May to protest what it called “unacceptable interference in Syrian internal affairs”. HM/SZ/AM