SYRIA HUMAN RIGHTS ROUNDUP: TRIALS, TRAVEL BANS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DAMASCUS 004026

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

PARIS FOR WALLER, LONDON FOR TSOU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/15/2016
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL SY
SUBJECT: SYRIA HUMAN RIGHTS ROUNDUP: TRIALS, TRAVEL BANS
AND DEPORTATIONS

REF: A. DAMASCUS 2263

B. DAMASCUS 3488

C. DAMASCUS 2391

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Michael H. Corbin for reasons 1.4 b/d


1. (C) Summary: The SARG continues to crack down on Syrians
critical of the SARG, pursuing court cases against activists
such as Ali and Mohammed Abdullah and Fateh Jammous, and
restricting travel by civil society figures, according to
contacts. Despite the ongoing crackdown, the Damascus
Declaration group has continued to meet secretly, forming a
General Secretariat with former MP Riad Seif as its elected
head, contacts said. The group recently came out with a
little-publicized statement in support of "the resistance" in
the Israel-Hizballah conflict, in light of widespread
Lebanese civilian deaths and the massive destruction in the
country, one human rights organizer told us. There are
reports that the SARG has deported four more Iranian-Arab
Ahwazis back to Iran, including one person who was a Dutch
citizen. The Acting UNHCR Representative in Damascus said he
was waiting for the Syrian MFA to clarify the report. End
Summary.


2. (SBU) ABDULLAH TRIAL: Father-and-son activists Ali and
Mohammed Abdullah were charged August 14 in Military Court
with insulting Syrian President Bashar al-Asad and security
officials, as well as spreading lies about Syria's economic
situation. Charges against the father, Ali, were linked to
economic articles he had written in regional Arabic-language
papers, while charges against Mohammed were mostly connected
to an interview with al-Jazira television about the-then
recent arrest of his father. The President of the
Paris-based Arab Commission for Human Rights, Violette
Daguerre, and Tunisian human rights activist Siham
Bensidrine, who observed the session, said they had
unsuccessfully requested from Syrian authorities official
legal documents detailing charges against the Abdullahs.
Lawyers Faisal Badr, Rezanne Zeituneh and Ibrahim Hakim will
present the Abdullahs' defense scheduled for September 27.


3. (SBU) FATEH JAMMOUS REMAINS IN CUSTODY: Communist Action
Party leader Jammous appeared July 24 in criminal court on
charges of publishing "false news that can diminish the
nation's dignity," according to human rights contacts.
(Note: In Jammous' court appearances earlier this year,
interrogation focused on two public meetings Jammous held in
Stockholm and London with Syrian expatriates to discuss the
situation in Syria, as reported in reftel A. According to
Jammous' lawyer at that time, the SARG's evidence file
contained verbatim transcriptions of the discussions during
those meetings, suggesting that an audience member had
recorded and passed on the recordings to SARG authorities.)
During the July 24 session, the judge interrogated Jammous
about an interview that he gave in London to a television
channel, according to contacts. He was denied release on
bail.


4. (C) DAMASCUS-BEIRUT DECLARATION DETAINEES: Six people
who signed the Damascus-Beirut Declaration, including Syrian
intellectual Michel Kilo and human rights lawyer Anwar
al-Bunni, remain in Syrian prison, following the July release
of four signatories. SARG authorities have made progress in
efforts to persuade as many as four other jailed signatories
to withdraw their signatures, not including Bunni and Kilo
who remain steadfast, asserted Ammar Qurabi of the National
Organization for Human Rights in Syria (NOHR in Syria).
Qurabi added that he had visited Kilo in prison recently and
had found him frustrated over the lack of attention to his
plight and that of other political prisoners.


5. (C) TRAVEL BANS: The SARG has prevented in recent months
civil society and human rights activists from traveling
(reftel B). Although the bans are often not made public, we
have heard from individuals whose travel has been banned or
restricted, including the lawyers of jailed activist Kamal
Labwani, Muhanned al-Hasani and Khalil Matook; Ammar Qurabi
(although he recently obtained permission for a 24-hour trip
to London to attend a meeting of the Aspen
Institute-Germany); and civil society activist and
intellectual Radwan Ziyadeh, who is also head of the Damascus
Center for the Study of Human Rights (although Ziyadeh
recently obtained permission to travel to Denmark to discuss
the cartoon crisis.

DAMASCUS 00004026 002 OF 002




6. (C) DAMASCUS DECLARATION: Despite the ongoing crackdown,
the Damascus Declaration (DD) group has continued to meet
secretly, forming a General Secretariat with formerly

SIPDIS
detained Damascus Spring MP Riad Seif as its elected head, as
well as a media committee and a follow-up committee. In the
DD elections, Seif overcame fierce competition from Hasan
Abdulazeem, Arab Socialist Union SYG (a small pan-Arab
opposition party) and Democratic National Rally spokesman,
who had to settle for membership in the Secretariat,
according to new DD member and president of the banned Jamal
Atassi Forum, Suheir Atassi, in a conversation with an
Embassy FSN. Pressure on the group continues, however, with
Syrian security shutting down a meeting earlier this month,
despite members' efforts to change the location of each
gathering and to communicate via vague telephone text
messages, a human rights activist noted. In late July or
early August, the DD issued a little-publicized statement
about the Israel-Hizballah conflict in support of the
Lebanese "resistance," after heated debate about whether the
group should explicitly mention Hizballah, Ziyadeh said. He
added that this view was widespread in Syria, even among
civil society activists given the high civilian death toll in
Lebanon and the widespread destruction of the country's
infrastructure. (Note: Post is seeking a copy of the
statement.)

7 (C) NEW AHWAZI DEPORTATIONS?: The British-based Ahwazi
Friendship Society stated in a news release posted on the
group's Web site that the SARG has deported back to Iran four
UNHCR-recognized Ahwazi refugees who had been detained in
Syria. The four refugees are: Faleh Abdullah al-Mansouri, a
60-year-old Dutch national; Gamal Obeidy, a 34-year-old
student at Damascus University; and brothers Taher Ali and
Abdulrasoul Ali Mazrae. UNHCR's Acting Representative
Laurens Jolles told Poloff that his agency has formally
requested the MFA to provide information about the
whereabouts of the four refugees, indicating, however, that
contrary to the Ahwazi society's report, Mansouri may have
been deported in May around the same time as Saeed Saki
(reftel C) and the others may still remain in SARG custody.
(Embassy is still awaiting MFA response to our demarche on
that deportation and plans to follow up.).
CORBIN