Syrian Political Prisoners
Sadly, the Syrian regime has imprisoned thousands of nonviolent activists. Read their stories below and consider spreading the word about the campaign by posting a link to this page on any social networks of which you’re a part.
Act urgently to release this political prisoner:
Islam Dabbas, just 22 years old, saw the effectiveness of the nonviolent “fraternization” strategy in Syria. Activists offered water bottles to soldiers, treating them as human beings with a choice, and in the process changing their hearts. Islam became one of the nonviolent resistance’s most avid proponents, bringing water bottles and flowers to soldiers even after his father, Khairo Dabbas, was imprisoned.
The Syrian regime witnessed the effectiveness of this strategy too. The regime seemed to feel so threatened by the greater force of love over hate that it targeted Islam for imprisonment and torture.
On July 22, 2011, soldiers surrounded and captured Islam, with the flowers still in his hands.
AbdulHamid Birro-Seeno (Abdul Hamid, Pro (Cino)
AbdulHamid Birro-Seeno (Abdul Hamid, Pro (Cino) was detained on January 4, 2012, allegedly for attempting to promote humanitarian relief for families affected by the regime’s repeated military assaults on Homs, Syria’s third largest city, under regime attack since early November.
Aghiad Dil’een
Aghiad Dil’een is 15 years old. A ninth-grader in the Damascus suburb of Daraya, he was arbitrarily imprisoned on November 16, 2011, by Air Force Security. This branch is responsible for most arrests from Daraya, and is notorious for its use of torture at all stages of detention, most notably in the death in detention of nonviolent protester Ghiyath Matar on September 6, 2011. Alaa Shweiti
Alwan Zeater
Amer Mohammad Hilmy
Amer Mohammad Hilmy reportedly was tortured badly enough to require transfer to a hospital on October 3, 2011. He is part of the nonviolence movement of Daraya, a Damascus suburb of about 200,000 people. Youth in Daraya have been studying the teachings of Syria’s Islamic nonviolence movement since 1999, beginning with the work of the foremost Syrian teacher of Islamic nonviolence, Jawdat Said, 80, and expanding to a study of worldwide nonviolence practitioners including Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dalai Lama. Between 1998 and 2003, what came to be known as the Daraya Youth Group was active in promoting values of personal empowerment and nonviolent social change.
Anas Shughri
Anas Shughri, Born in 1988, is credited with beginning the nonviolent protests in the city of Banyas, and with keeping them nonviolent. Anas is from Banyas and well-loved and well-known in his hometown. A university student, Anas stood up one day in March in a crowd at the main mosque in Banyas and said, “Whoever wants freedom, come with me [out to the demonstration now]! Whoever doesn’t, go home.”
Annas Sahen
Asma Suqti - RELEASED
Basem Eido
Basem Eido, 21 years old, was arbitrarily imprisoned on Dec. 13, 2011, in the city of Salamiya, in the Homs region of Syria. Born on November 25, 1990, Basem is a student. He is held incommunicado, not allowed contact with a lawyer or his family. Join us in holding the regime of Syria responsible for the arbitrary detention of Basem, and in demanding his release. Deya al-Abdullah
Dr. Imad AbdulQader-RELEASED on bail Dec 8,2011
Dr Imad AbdulQader is a pulmonary resident and has a longtime commitment to nonviolence. Kurdish, originally from Qamishly/Qamishlo, he was also imprisoned back in the Kurdish uprising of 2004, arbitrarily. His wife, Basma Khaless, is expecting delivery of their first child. Both Imad and Basma are part of a group called “Nonviolence Movement of the Jazeera Region,”
Emad Nihad Druby - RELEASED January 17, 2012
Faten Fawaz -RELEASED
Faten Rajab Fawaz, a teacher, is the first woman from the town of Duma, a Damascus suburb, to be imprisoned during the Syrian revolution. She was arbitrarily detained on Dec. 26, 2011. Faten’s brother was the first man from Duma to be killed by the regime during the revolution.
Feras Fayyad - RELEASED
Feras Fayyad is a Syrian filmmaker from Dadeekh, a village near the city of Idlib. He was imprisoned on Nov. 30, 2011. Feras met screenwriter Ellesar Hasan, from the Homs suburb of Salamiyah, during the course of the Syrian revolution. Both 27-year-olds were working in Damascus. Feras and Ellesar fell in love in the summer of 2011 and married in early August. The morning after their wedding, they marched together in a nonviolent demonstration. Ellesar left the country on Nov. 29; Feras planned to join her to attend a film exhibit abroad. He was arbitrarily detained when he checked into his flight the next day at Damascus International Airport.Feras Muhammad Mandeel
Ghassan Yasin - RELEASED in November, 2011
Guevar Saeed - RELEASED on bail early December, 2011
Hanadi Zahlout
Islam Dabbas
Jamal Tahan - RELEASED December 23, 2011
Jamal Tahan a prominent intellectual and scholar from Aleppo, prolific writer, member of Arab Writers’ Union, editor of the cultural section ofJamahir (“The Masses”) newspaper which was issued in Aleppo from 2000 to 2006, chief editor of Al Aadat (customs) periodical, lecturer, and doctorate holder in philosophy, to name but a few of his roles, Dr Tahan was arbitrarily detained from his home, while recovering from surgery, by Air Force Security in Aleppo on July 19. A prostate cancer patient, Jamal Tahan, was spending a period of convalescence following a major surgery was not given any consideration by Syrian authorities.Karam Khartash
Karam Nabh
Karam Nabh of Latakia, a city on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, is 22 years old and studied at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport. Karam is an avid swimmer and soccer player. He was captured at an Internet cafe in Latakia on October 10, 2011. He is held extrajudicially, without warrant or charge, which is illegal in international law and, on paper, illegal in Syria too.
Maher Hamoud
Maher Wa’ez
Dr. Maher Muhammad Ali Wa’ez was arbitrarily detained from his hospital workplace in Aleppo, in front of his colleagues, without an arrest warrant or a charge, on November 3, 2011.
Mahmoud Abdulkader Ka’di
Mahmoud Abdulkader Ka’di a Syrian boxing champion, Mahmoud Abdulkader Ka’di was arbitrarily detained while exercising at a gym in the city of Homs. Ka’di is a national treasure, one of Syria’s sport heroes. He has been held incommunicado since June 2011.Mahmud Dorayd - RELEASED
Mahmud Dorayd a working class man, married, and a father of three children, Mahmud has been active in attending nonviolent demonstrations in Damascus. He was first imprisoned for demonstrating on March 15, 2011 in the first protest of the uprising. After his release, he continued to be pursued by security. During the revolution he has been imprisoned several additional times, including from August 24 to October 25, 2011. In addition, his brother Rashed was killed by regime forces for nonviolently demonstrating on Good Friday.
Mazen Ziada
Mohamad Said Khoulani
Mohammad Abu Hilal - RELEASED on bail Dec. 5, 2011
Muhammad Ahmad Razzuq
Muhammad Islam Ibrahim Masalmeh
Najati Tayyara - RELEASED January 17, 2012
Noman Na’ufy
Oday Hayek
Oday Hayek is twenty years old, from Salamiyah, a city in the Homs area. He was arbitrarily imprisoned on Dec. 14, 2011, in Salamiyah. Oday is a second-year student in tourism. A drummer and guitarist, Oday is in a band with his friends.
Osama Matarmawi
Osama Matarmawi is a 22-year-old third-year law student who agreed to participate in dialogue with regime representatives in Daraya and was imprisoned arbitrarily anyway, on June 25, 2011, by Air Force Security. Leaks from emerging prisoners say he is being subjected to torture and activists are gravely concerned for his life.
Reem Ghazzi
Rudy Othman - RELEASED
Saeer Haj Ramadan - Released on bail, December 2011
Salma and Amina Maghmoma
Shadi Abu Fakhr - RELEASED on bail January 5, 2012
Shadi Abu Fakhr has been charged in court in Damascus, on Oct 8. He, along with Hanadi Zahlout and 5 other wrongfully imprisoned Syrians, were charged with “creating a group that attempts to change the social and economic make-up of the state” (the first time in this revolution this charge has been advanced by the regime), a violation of Article 306; “weakening the national morale and inciting to racism,” a violation of Article 285; “spreading false news about the state,” a violation of Article 286; “private meetings and demonstrations and inciting demonstrations and riot” a violation of Articles 216, 336, and 335 of Syrian law.
Shaker Masri
Shapal Ibrahim
Shapal Ibrahim born 1977, is a father of three (Alland, Lunad, Aleen) and suffers from a liver condition. A graduate of medical college, Shapal, a Kurdish activist, has not able to use his degree to obtain work in his field in Syria because of constant harassment by the police state’s security system. In recent months, Shapal has been targeted for more harassment by security. On September 22, security agents from the Air Force branch forcibly disappeared Shapal l in Qamishlo.
Suroor Ali Shakhmoos - RELEASED
Talat Mohammad Hilmy
Tayseer Karim-RELEASED
Dr. Tayseer Karim, a oncologist, is originally from Deir Ezzor and grew up in Qamishli, in northern Syria. He and his Turkish wife (Shirin Duman, a dentist) work in Damascus. He has been active as a field doctor for those wounded by regime forces, providing lifesaving medical care outside hospitals because the regime has been using hospitals as places of torture and arrest of protesters. He was detained on December 26, 2011,
Tayseer Mohammed Zou’by, M.D.- RELEASED on bail September 16, 2011
Dr.Tayseer Mohammed Zou’by was the courageous field doctor at the Omari Mosque in Daraa, where regime forces beseiged unarmed protesters and shot at them on March 21, 2011.
Tayseer Nasser
Tayseer Nasser is a 34-year-old pharmacist, a Palestinian living in the Raml camp, in Syria’s coastal city of Latakia. He was detained without warrant or charge; it is believed he is imprisoned for providing medical aid to the wounded.
Yahya Shurbaji
Yahya Shurbaji is a 33-year-old nonviolence visionary of longstanding in the city of Daraya, a suburb of Damascus. Since 1998, he had been involved in Daraya nonviolence activism, in a group called the Daraya Youth who studied nonviolence thought and put their ideas of citizen empowerment into practice through a community library project, street clean-up, and other actions in the 2000s.
Terminology used with Syria’s political prisoners:
Forced disappearances, when endemic as in Syria, are considered crimes against humanity in international law, according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which came in effect 2002. The fact that they may be committed by third parties does not alter the legal responsibility of the regime in international law, because there is a widespread and systematic acquiescence of the government to these third parties. The third parties that commit the forced disappearances in Syria are the petty thugs known as “shabiha” (the word literally means “phantoms”). The shabiha in Syria were begun in the early 1980s by Walid Othman, father-in-law of Bashar al-Asaad’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf. They were recruited from poor working class men. These young men were given arms by regime agents and allowed to commit rape, petty theft, and smuggling without punishment; now they are also given free rein to do the regime’s dirty work in terrorizing the protesters by beating them in the streets, as well as by abducting, detaining, torturing, and raping them.
Arbitrary detention is illegal according to Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Syria acceded in 1969. This is arbitrary detention, and thus constitutes violation of Syria’s international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, specifically Article 9-14-19-21-22 ratified by Syria in 1969 and entered into force on March 23, 1976. We demand the immediate release, without restrictions or conditions, of all these prisoners. We hold the Syrian regime responsible for the safe return of all prisoners of conscience in Syria.
Incommunicado: When prisoners are held without being allowed contact with a lawyer, or the family, this too is a violation of international and Syrian law. Often they are held without even acknowledgement by security system authorities that they are indeed in custody. This gives the regime “deniability.” We hold Syria responsible for these prisoners.
Torture is widespread and systematic in Syria’s security system. We remind Syrian authorities that torture is illegal in Syria, both under international law and according to Article 28 (3) of the Syrian Constitution. The Penal Code of Syria stipulates punishment for anyone inflicting torture on a person.
