HUMAN RIGHTS PRESSURE PROMPTS NEW THREATS AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 000791

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ELA, DRL/NESCA
LONDON FOR LORD, PARIS FOR NOBLES

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2019
TAGS: PHUM PREL KDEM SOCI SY
SUBJECT: HUMAN RIGHTS PRESSURE PROMPTS NEW THREATS AND
CONTROLS FROM SARG

REF: DAMASCUS 00787

Classified By: CDA Charles Hunter for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: Citing the pressure that international
condemnation over the arrests of human rights lawyers Muhanad
al-Hasani and Haitham al-Maleh had produced, Catherine
al-Tali (strictly protect) told us state security services
had employed a mixture of legal action and direct threats of
imprisonment to limit the outflow of information from
activists to diplomats and international NGOs. Muhanad
al-Hasani's brother was summoned to security services offices
and questioned. Tali has received threats that she could be
arrested if she does not cease her human rights activities.
Security services have also moved to remove a Cairo-based
human rights lawyer from Muhanad al-Hasani's defense team.
End Summary.

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Hasani's Brother Threatened
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2. (C) Catherine al-Tali, a lawyer, Syrian Human Rights
Organization-SWASIAH activist, and Muhanad al-Hasani's
lieutenant, told us November 15 that state security Major
General Zuheir Hamad ordered Muhanad's brother Mulham
al-Hasani (strictly protect) to report to security offices
for questioning on November 12. Mulham met with MajGen Hamad
at 1300 and endured a 10-hour interrogation.


3. (C) During the questioning, Tali said, Hamad demanded
Mulham go to Adra prison, get power of attorney from Muhanad,
and remove Cairo-based human rights lawyer Nasser Amin
(reftel) from the list of lawyers authorized to defend
Muhanad. "We hate all these Egyptians," Hamad reportedly
shouted. Tali said she and Mulham visited Muhanad on
November 14, explained Hamad's demands, and received
Muhanad's blessings and power of attorney. Tali added that
Muhanad confided to her he greatly feared for his brother's
safety and asked her to "take care of him (Mulham)." MajGen
Hamad warned Mulham that if word of his questioning leaked to
the "outside," he would be immediately arrested, Tali told us.

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The Fight For International Attention
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4. (C) Mulham al-Hasani has begun the process of removing
Nasser Amin's name for Muhanad's case, and will no longer be
as active on his brother's behalf as he has been. Tali
speculated that state security must be feeling "pressure"
over the arrests of Hasani and Haitham Maleh to take the
extraordinary step of interfering with Muhanad's defense
team. For their parts, Mulham and Tali have been extremely
energetic in raising Muhanad's profile. The pair has
regularly updated diplomats throughout the disbarment
proceedings (reftel) and in October traveled to Brussels and
Strasbourg for an extensive set of meetings with
representatives from the Council of the European Union's
General Secretariat, the European Commission's Human Rights
division, and EU Parliament advisors. Responding to a
question from poloff, Tali doubted whether the call from
MajGen Hamad stemmed from this recent European travel and
claimed the security services had no clue they had met with
EU officials.


5. (C) Tali and Mulham's EU meetings focused on human rights
in general and Muhanad al-Hasani's case in particular. EU
officials expressed displeasure over the current state of
human rights in the region and assured Tali that the EU
Association Agreement included specific human rights language
(Article II). Tali said everyone she met regarded getting
the Agreement signed as an important first step for the EU to
gain influence over the human rights situation in Syria.
Tali added she had informed EU officials that her
organization and other civil society activists did not oppose
the Agreement as long as human rights remained an essential
element of the EU's dialogue with Syria.


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Hasani's Open Letter
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6. (SBU) Even though Hasani is not permitted to speak to
other prisoners, has no access to a phone, can only leave his
cell for one hour a day, and has limited family visits, he
managed to smuggle a letter about his views on the rights of
lawyers and his recent disbarment to Human Rights Watch, who
published on-line on November 13. In the letter, Muhanad
emphasized the lawyer's professional role vis-a-vis the
nation's legal system and how it is a requirement for lawyers
to take part in public causes related to legal questions.
Hasani noted, "I have never criticized for the sake of
criticism only, but have worked for values that I have
acquired during my career as a lawyer, as an intellectual, as
a citizen, and a human," he writes. Addressing the issue of
his disbarment, he adds, "Finally, I regard my disbarment as
a medal on my chest of which I am proud and which I give to
all the deprived and oppressed, especially to those prisoners
of conscience who I had the honor to represent and defend."

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Tali Threatened
--------------


7. (C) Tali, who for the last few years has not been on the
security services' radar, stated she had also received a
threat from state security. On November 11, security agents
contacted her family in Sednaya and told them that if Tali
did not stop her activism, she would soon be arrested. "If
you did not raise her properly, then we will," the security
agent reportedly warned her family.


8. (C) Comment: While lengthy interrogations of activists'
family members are not unusual, demanding the cancellation of
Nasser Amin's right to represent Muhanad al-Hasani suggests a
new and potentially exploitable sensitivity to international
pressure. The SARG clearly wants human rights dissonance
removed from its communications with regional and western
governments, and it has gone to great lengths to bury human
rights sources like Hasani and Haitham Maleh out of sight.
Ironically, following 10 months of relative quiet in which
the regime continued detaining and convicting activists with
impunity, the SARG appears to have lost control of the human
rights question as evinced by the steady human rights chatter
surrounding the EU Association Agreement, recent public
statements on Maleh's arrest by the U.K., France, the U.S.
and Canada, Turkey's engagement with Syria on its new Kurdish
policy, attention from regional lawyers' associations, Human
Rights Watch publication of Hasani's letter, and Syria's own
advocacy of the Goldstone report on the grounds of human
rights. President Obama's continued emphasis on human and
civil rights, most recently at the November ASEAN summit and
his subsequent visit to China, might provide upcoming
official visitors to Damascus an occasion for illustrating to
SARG interlocutors how engagement and criticism can be
coupled together productively. Such conversations with SARG
officials will prove crucial to convincing the Syrians that
neither the U.S. nor the West will relent in their insistence
for a human rights dialogue as part of any engagement with
Damascus.
HUNTER