Far From Justice - Human Rights Watch

possession of CD's, booklets etc. of apparently radical imams.” 74 On the other end of thespectrum are defendants accused of being members of al-Qaeda.In addition to these loosely-identified Islamist groups, the SSSC continues to try suspectedmembers in the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Since January 2007, the SSSC has sentencedat least 22 defendants for membership in the banned Muslim Brotherhood. 75 Thegovernment arrested some of these defendants upon their return home from exile. Forexample, the SSSC sentenced Mahmud Ahmad Sammak on February 11, 2007 to 12 years injail for membership in the Muslim Brotherhood following his return from Yemen, where hehad lived since 1981.In addition to Islamists, the SSSC continues to try and sentence other political activists andindependent critics of the authorities. One worrying development is that the SSSC has beguntrying writers and bloggers for posting information online that is critical of the authorities orotherwise displeases them. For example, on April 7, 2008, the SSSC sentenced the writerand poet Firas Sa`ad, 38, to four years in jail for writing articles on the website “Al-hiwar al-Mutamaddin” (www.ahewar.org), in which he defended the Beirut-Damascus Declaration(which called for improved relations between Lebanon and Syria). 76 (See section IV.B“Criminalization of Freedom of Expression” for further examples).However, it appears that Syrian authorities recently have avoided trying prominent andinternationally-known political and human activists before the SSSC, preferring to try thembefore the “regular” criminal courts. For example, in the last two years, it was the DamascusCriminal Court and not the SSSC that sentenced the following activists: the 12 political andhuman rights activists that participated in the 2007 meeting of the National Council of theDamascus Declaration; 77 the human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni; 78 the political and human74 Human Rights Watch e-mail with Damascus-based diplomat N.R., August 28, 2008.75 Law 49 (1980) criminalizes membership in the Muslim Brotherhood and states that affiliation with the group is punishableby death.76 State security forces had arrested Firas Sa`ad on July 30, 2006. Firas Sa`ad’s writings can be found athttp://www.ahewar.org/m.asp?i=50977 The Damascus Declaration is a gathering of numerous opposition groups and activists calling for democratic reforms inSyria. For more information about the arrest and trial of the group, see “Syria: More Activists Arrested Following OppositionMeeting,” Human Rights Watch news release, December 17, 2007, http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/12/17/syria17556.htm;“Syria: Opposition Activists Tell of Beatings in Interrogation,” Human Rights Watch news release, February 5, 2008,http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/02/05/syria17973.htm; “Syria: Harsh Sentences for Democratic Opposition,” HumanRights Watch news release, October 30, 2008, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/10/30/syria-harsh-sentences-democraticopposition.78 The Damascus Criminal Court sentenced Anwar al-Bunni on April 25, 2007 to five years in jail for “spreading false orexaggerated news that weaken the spirit of the nation,” based on his statement that inhumane conditions led to the death of23 Human Rights Watch February 2009