Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has obtained information about the charges brought against the journalist and writer Fayez Sara, who arrested on April 11 in Damascus, and the blogger Kamal Hussein Sheikhou, who was arrested during a demonstration outside the interior ministry on March 15. The press freedom organisation called for the withdrawal of the charges against them and all the others who have been arrested. They should be freed unconditionally at once.
Sara is being investigated by a Damascus court on charges of attacking the prestige of the state, disseminating untrue reports with the aim of undermining national morale, influencing sectarian and ethnic divisions and “disrupting national purity” under articles 285, 286 et 307 of the criminal code.
Sheikhou is being prosecuted on the same charges that were brought against him following his previous arrest in June 2010, namely “publishing information defaming the nation.”
Khaled Sid Mohand, an Algerian journalist working for France Culture who was arrested on April 9, and Mohamed Zaid Mistou, a Norwegian journalist of Syrian origin, are still being held arbitrarily. There is still no word of the journalists Akram Abu Safi and Sobhie Naeem Al-Assal. Many journalists in France have been calling for Mohand’s release (see this Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_149193425148628).
