“Though, there is no greater happiness for a prisoner than the knowledge that the outer world is remembering him, as devastation and bloodshed has engulfed my homeland, happiness has become a kind of luxury for which I feel ashamed.” Mazen Darwish, June 10, 2013, Damascus Central Prison in Adra
Mazen Darwish, President of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), together with two other SCM members, Mohamed Hani Al Zaitani and Hussein Hammad Ghrer, lingers in pre-trial detention since February 2012 for advocating for freedom of expression and for monitoring gross human rights violations committed in Syria in particular since March 2011.
On February 16, 2012, Mazen Darwish was arrested along with 15 other persons. During approximately nine months, Darwish and some of his colleagues were assumed “forcibly disappeared” and subjected to acts of torture. Yet the judges have so far failed to open investigations into these allegations, contrary to their obligation under international law. In February 2013, five of them, including the three detained SCM members and two other colleagues, Mansour Omari and Abdel Rahman Hamada, were informed that they would be prosecuted by the Anti-Terrorism Court for “publicising terrorist acts”, charges which are completely unjustified. If convicted, the activists could be imprisoned for up to 15 years. The trial has been adjourned on numerous occasions. The next hearing has been scheduled for March 10, 2014.
“Human rights defenders have been paying a very heavy toll in Syria. Dozens of them are arbitrarily detained, sometimes incommunicado, or have been ’forcibly disappeared’. Meaningful negotiation for an end to the Syrian conflict requires that all peaceful advocates be immediately released”, declared Karim Lahidji, FIDH President.
“The continuous detention of Mazen Darwish, Hussein Hammad Ghrer and Mohamed Hani Al Zaitani clearly forms part of a wider campaign of threats and harassment against human rights defenders in Syria. We therefore call on the Syrian authorities to release them immediately and unconditionally as well as to order investigations into the above-mentioned allegations of torture and ill-treatment”, further urged Gerald Staberock, OMCT Secretary General.
On the occasion of the two-year anniversary of the detention of Mazen Darwish, Hani Al Zaitani and Hussein Ghrer, the Observatory reiterates its call to the Syrian authorities to immediately comply with the decision of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), which recently declared the detention of the three human rights defenders as arbitrary and asked for their immediate release. More generally, the Observatory urges the Syrian authorities to release all human rights defenders detained in Syria merely to prevent them from carrying out their legitimate and peaceful human rights work.