Two internet Syrian activists held incommunicado, may be 'disappeared'
Syria, Politics, 10/16/2007

Human Rights Watch spoke on 8th of this month of Syria holding writers and activists detained solely for expressing their opinions or reporting information online.

Syrian authorities have held two men in incommunicado detention since June for expressing online views that are critical of the Syrian government. Authorities have refused to disclose the whereabouts of the detained men to their families. On September 23, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced a third man to two years in prison for posting online comments that displeased the authorities.

"The fact that Syria arrests people solely because they criticize the state speaks volumes about the government's utter disregard for the most basic human rights," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Even worse, Syrian intelligence has the nasty habit of not telling families where their loved ones are being detained - in effect, disappearing them for periods of time."

On June 7, the Mantaqa Branch of Military Intelligence detained Karim `Arbaji, 29, allegedly for moderating http://www.akhawia.net, a popular online forum for Syrian youth covering social and political issues. Persons familiar with the case told Human Rights Watch that the Mantaqa Branch may have transferred him to the Palestine Branch in Damascus, but the authorities have provided no official notification of `Arbaji's whereabouts. On June 30, 2007, Military Intelligence in the coastal city of Tartous arrested Tarek Biasi, 22, because he "went online and insulted security services," according to a person familiar with the case. Biasi remains in incommunicado detention, his whereabouts unknown. On September 23, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced Ali Zein al-`Abideen Mej`an to two years in prison for "undertaking acts or writing or speeches unauthorized by the government... that spoil its ties with a foreign state" because he posted comments online attacking Saudi Arabia.

The UN General Assembly condemned "enforced disappearances" as "a grave and flagrant violation" of human rights, and defined the violation in these terms: "ersons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government... followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law." The UNGA Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance states that enforced disappearance violates the right not to be subjected to torture, and constitutes a grave threat to the right to life.

Syrian security services frequently require internet cafe owners to spy on customers that access "sensitive" sites. On December 13, 2006, Political Security arrested `Ahed al-Hindi, 23, and one of his relatives, in an internet cafe in Damascus, because al-Hindi was sending comments and information to opposition websites outside Syria. The owner of the internet cafe had filmed al-Hindi posting the comments. Al-Hindi and his relative were released on January 15, 2007.

Syrian authorities recently took measures to restrict the use of anonymous comments that many Syrian writers rely on to escape state surveillance. On July 25, 2007, the Syrian minister of communications and technology, `Amr Salem, issued a decree requiring all website owners to display "the name and e-mail of the writer of any article or comment... clearly and in detail, under threat of warning the owner of the website, then restricting access to the website temporarily and in case the violation is repeated, permanently banning the website." In the first documented application of the directive, the Ministry of Communications and Technology restricted access to http://www.damaspost.com, a popular Syrian news website, for 24 hours after a commentator identified as "Jamal" criticized the head of the Journalists' Union and the al-Ba`ath newspaper for nepotism.

Under international law, the rights to privacy and free expression entail a corollary right to communicate anonymously. Allowing persons to speak anonymously, without fear of reprisal or stigma, encourages the sort of expression that is critical to protection of rights and a democratic society - from political pamphleteering, to anonymous tips for journalists, to "blowing the whistle" on corruption by officials or companies. While the right to anonymity is not absolute, the restrictions imposed by the Syrian decree eliminate it altogether in the name of repressing purportedly "criminal" expression.

The Syrian government blocks websites that span a range of categories. Authorities impose most substantial filtering against sites that criticize government policies or support Syrian opposition groups. Censored websites also include Arabic newspapers outside Syria that carry materials critical of the government, as well as websites belonging to Syrian opposition or Kurdish political parties and Islamist websites. OpenNet Initiative, a partnership of four leading universities in the US, Canada and the UK, which monitors government filtration and surveillance of the internet, says that filtering of political websites in Syria is "pervasive."

The last six years have seen an explosion of internet use in Syria, with close to 1 million of the country's 18 million people now online, compared to just 30,000 in 2000. The Arab Advisors Group, an Amman-based business-consulting firm, projects that the number of Syrian internet users will exceed 1.7 million by 2009.

Human Rights Watch called on Syria to cease blocking websites that carry material protected by the right to free expression and access to information, and to release all those detained solely for exercising these rights, online or otherwise.

BACKGROUND: In an extensive 2005 study on online censorship in the Middle East and North Africa ( http://hrw.org/reports/2005/mena1105/ ), Human Rights Watch found that "the Syrian government relies on a host of repressive laws and extralegal measures to suppress Syrians' right to access and disseminate information freely online."

Previous Stories:
  Syrian dissident released after 27 months detention   (9/14/2007)
  Syrian missing after summoning by security forces   (9/5/2007)
  Syrian dissident journalist Michel Kilo sentenced to three years jail   (5/15/2007)

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