Posted on 4 November, 2009 by Mathias Vermeulen
Al-Maleh, a known human rights defender of people whose rights have been violated by Syria’s state security services, was charged with “conveying false news within Syria that could debilitate the morale of the nation”, “weakening national sentiment” and “slandering” a governmental body. Amnesty International said that it believes these charges have been brought against him [...]
Filed under: Syria | Leave a Comment »
Posted on 14 August, 2009 by Mathias Vermeulen
The Open Net initiative just released it’s 2008-2009 report on filtering trends across the Middle East and North Africa. Overall, there has been an increase in filtering practices since 2007, and further measures to monitor Internet activities, particularly in Internet cafés, have been introduced. Additionally, countries that have been filtering political content continue to add [...]
Filed under: Freedom of speech - incitement, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Technology, Use of internet, Yemen | Leave a Comment »
Posted on 4 August, 2009 by Mathias Vermeulen
Human rights groups today asked two U.N. Special Rapporteurs and the U.N. Working Group on Involuntary or Enforced Disappearances to investigate the case of Mustafa Setmariam Nassar, a Spanish citizen who was forcibly disappeared almost four years ago. According to media reports, Nassar, an influential Islamic theorist, was apprehended by Pakistani officials and handed over [...]
Filed under: Pakistan, Rendition, Syria, UK | Leave a Comment »
Posted on 30 June, 2009 by Mathias Vermeulen
A lawyer says Italian authorities are set to expel to Syria one of the Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and killed an American passenger in 1985. Attorney Gianfranco Pagano said Youssef Magied al-Molqui was about to be flown from Palermo, Sicily, to Rome and then on to Damascus last Saturday.In April, Al-Molqui [...]
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Posted on 16 June, 2009 by Mathias Vermeulen
Human rights attorney Clive Stafford-Smith told Reuters that Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri, a senior al Qaeda ideologue wanted in Spain for possible links to 2004 bombings has been found in detention in Syria, in the first firm indication of his whereabouts following his capture in Pakistan in 2005.
Nasar’s arrest was [...]
Filed under: Pakistan, Rendition, Syria | 1 Comment »
Posted on 11 May, 2009 by Mathias Vermeulen
Maryam Kallis, 36, from west London, and Yasser Ahmed, 28, from Woking, Surrey, were arrested eight weeks ago on consecutive days in Damascus by Arab plainclothes officers. Lord Ahmed, a Labour life peer who is representing the families, said to The Guardian he had been told last week by a senior official at the Syrian [...]
Filed under: Detention, Syria, UK | 3 Comments »
Posted on 2 May, 2009 by Mathias Vermeulen
U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Read the full report here.
The state department singled out [...]
Filed under: Iran, Legislation, Pakistan, Radicalisation, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Technology | Leave a Comment »
Posted on 30 April, 2009 by Mathias Vermeulen
According to HRW, the security services detained 13 men during an August crackdown on individuals from the northeastern district of Deir al-Zawr suspected of having ties to Islamists. Another group, detained in September, was of Syrian Kurds from the towns of Qamishli and `Ifrin suspected of belonging to an armed group called the Movement to [...]
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Posted on 25 February, 2009 by Mathias Vermeulen
The Supreme State Security Court “consistently ignores claims by defendants that their confessions were extracted under torture and frequently convicts them on vague and overbroad offenses that essentially criminalize freedom of expression and association,” Human Rights Watch said in a new report.
The report says the largest number of defendants were Islamists accused of espousing [...]
Filed under: Fair Trial, Syria | Leave a Comment »