A three-year jail sentence has been imposed by a Damascus military court on writer and journalist Ali Al-Abdallah on a charge of “intending to harm Syria’s relations with another state” under article 278 of the criminal code. The court ruled that he would have to serve 18 months of the sentence, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported.
The charge was based on an article by Abdallah about Iran that was posted online on August 23, 2009, while he was in prison. It criticised the Wilayat al-Faqih doctrine, which gives Iran’s clerics absolute power over political affairs.
Abdallah has been held since December 17, 2007, when he was arrested for signing the Damascus Declaration. He should have been released on June 16, 2010 on completing a 30-month jail sentence but the authorities used the article as grounds for keeping him in prison. He was initially also charged with “publishing false information with the aim of harming the state.”
RSF has meanwhile learned that the lawyer Mohammed Ibrahim Issa was arrested on March 5 after the security services searched his home in the Damascus suburb of Duma, confiscating his computer and other personal items. The reason for his arrest is not known.
The organisation welcomed Kurdish blogger Kamal Hussein Sheikhou’s release on March 13 on bail. He had been arrested on June 23, 2010 while trying to enter Lebanon using his brother’s passport. His trial opened on 7 March.
The author of many articles on the All4syria website, Sheikhou is charged with “publishing information defaming the nation.” RSF called for the withdrawal of the charges. He began a hunger strike on February 16 in protest against conditions in Adra prison, near Damascus.
