The Prisoner By B.A. Paris

In Lebanon and France, independent human rights groups actively campaigned for the release of several hundred Lebanese they knew or suspected were being held in Syria prisons. While confirming reports that dozens of political prisoners had been released by late July, CDF's Paris-based spokesman Ghayath Naisse said that the "prisoner release is partial, not the comprehensive one we were hoping for." Representatives of eighteen human rights organizations from Palestine and Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and other Arab countries wrote in June to the Ninth Regional Congress of the Syrian Ba'th Party calling for an end to emergency law. The letter said that hundreds of political prisoners released from "grisly detention centers" were "still deprived of their civil rights by order of the Supreme State Security Court. They are prevented from traveling, their movements are restricted, and many have lost their jobs." The letter called on the authorities "to make the brave and historic decision to do away with political detention once and for all, release all political prisoners, and restore to them their full civil rights as guaranteed by the Syrian Constitution."

The Prisoner by B.A. Paris

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