Syria bars civil society activists from travel

Syrian authorities have amplified their

crackdown against civil society activists, arbitrarily restricting several

of them from leaving the country, Human Rights Watch said today.

Those most recently denied the right to leave Syria include: Radwan

Ziadeh, director of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies; Suheir

Atassi, head of the Jamal al-Atassi Forum for Democratic Dialogue, which

Syrian authorities shut down last year; Walid al-Bunni, a physician who

helped found the Committees for the Revival of Civil Society; and Samar

al-Labwani, the wife of jailed human rights activist Kamal al-Labwani.

"These travel bans are a crude attempt to prevent Syrian civil society

activists from interacting with the outside world," said Joe Stork, deputy

director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.

"Shy of putting these activists in jail, the Syrian government is instead

putting them under a type of national house arrest."

Ziadeh was traveling from Damascus to Amman on June 26 when Syrian security

forces at the border prevented him from leaving the country. They did not

explain the reason for the travel ban but indicated that the General

Intelligence Agency (al-Mukhabarat al-`Ama) had issued the order and that

Ziadeh had to report to them. He was on his way to participate in an

international conference on human rights and criminal justice organized by

the Amman Centre for Human Rights Studies.

Following the ban imposed on Ziadeh, three other civil society activists

learned that the government also had issued orders banning them from

traveling. Suheir Atassi was scheduled to leave Syria on July 2 for a 10-day

visit to France after receiving a scholarship from the French government for

her activities as a youth leader. The immigration authorities informed her

that the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence had issued the order

restricting her travel. The Palestine Branch houses a prison that the

government uses to jail a number of political activists.

The government had released Walid al-Bunni from jail in January 2006 after

he served five years for his involvement in the "Damascus Spring" movement

in 2001. The Damascus Spring was a period of intense political and social

debate in Syria, which started after the death of President Hafez al-Asad in

June 2000 and continued until the government suppressed these activities in

the fall of 2001. For the first time since 1989, al-Bunni was able to obtain

a passport, and was hoping to travel to Saudi Arabia to visit relatives and

to Greece to attend a conference. He learned that it was the General

Intelligence Agency (al-Mukhabarat al-`Ama) that had issued the order

banning him from travel.

Immigration authorities informed Samar Labwani at the Lebanese border that

the General Intelligence Agency (al-Mukhabarat al-`Ama) had issued orders

banning her from traveling. They did not inform her of the reasons for the

ban. Syrian security agents have detained her husband, the activist

Kamal al-Labwani, since November 8, 2005. Labwani has been charged,

amongst other things, with contacting a foreign state with the intent of

initiating aggression against Syria. His trial resumes on July 16.

Under international law, everyone is free to leave his or her country. The

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Syria is a

state party, bars states from restricting someone's right to leave the

country, except when the given restrictions are prescribed by law and are

"necessary to protect national security, public order, public health or

morals or the rights and freedoms of others," and are consistent with the

other rights recognized in that treaty. Syrian security agents have issued

travel bans in Syria without any explanation and without any judicial basis.