US calls Syria to release political prisoners
Syria-USA, Politics, 1/26/2006

The USA has called on Syria to release all opposition activists who are detained in Syria's prisons and to give up harassing Syrians who seek peaceful democratic reforms.

The spokesman for the White House Scott McClellan said in a statement that the US calls for an immediate release of all Syrian opinion prisoners including Kamal al-Labawani, Habib Saleh, Nizar Risranawi and Aref Dalila.

The spokesman added that the US President George W. Bush commended the release last week of Riad Seif and four other opposition figures, but it still have concern over many other political prisoners who are still detained in Syria.

He stressed that the Syrian government continued to respond to the legitimate calls of the Syrian people for the change by what he called strong repression.

The White House commended the bravery of those who were detained in 2001, after a short time known as "The Damascus Spring" in which the authorities tolerated the opposition and they were later sentenced to five year imprisonment over charges of violating the constitution, and five of them were released last week after the court lessened their imprisonment sentences for seven months, according to the rules of the Syrian law when the prisoners spends three quarters of their imprisonment penalty.

Previous Stories:
  EU calls for release of all political prisoners   (1/24/2006)
  US freezes Asef Shawkat assets   (1/20/2006)
  Syria authorities release five political activists   (1/19/2006)
  Lebanese students protest US intervention; Welsh's remarks   (1/18/2006)
  Damascus interrogates Labawani again for his trial   (12/16/2005)
  Bush calls Syria to release political prisoners   (12/12/2005)

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