Damascus
Center for Theoretical and Civil Rights Studies
مركز
دمشق للدراسات النظرية و الحقوق
المدنية
The Damascus Center for
Theoretical and Civil Rights Studies expresses relief at the presidential
decree to free comrade Nyouf from prison where he spent nine and a half years.
Charged of circulating a leaflet urging Syria's government to respect human
rights, Nyouf was sent to prison following an unfair trial by the State
Security Court. The court passed a sentence of ten years imprisonment and
deprivation of civil rights against him, which represented the harshest ruling
against a human rights' activist in the Syrian history.
Faced with Nyouf's willpower and stubbornness, the authorities insisted
to keep him in prison in spite of several appeals and the deterioration of his
health condition.
The
Damascus Center for Theoretical and Civil Rights Studies, therefore, reasserts
Nyouf's right to restore his full rights, including the freedom of movement,
and his right to receive medical treatment as well as to resume his activities
in defense of human rights and basic freedoms in Syria.
On the occasion of this apparently positive step-forward towards the re-establishment of human rights values in Syria, the Center urges the government to pass a similar pardon for all prisoners of conscience and political prisoners (estimated at 1200 prisoners). The Center also stresses the right of political exiles to return without exception and the right of the victims of arbitrary detention to judicial remedy and compensation in conformity with Syria's international commitments and local ordinary laws. We also call for an even wider campaign to close the prisons, particularly the prison of Tadmur, considered as the most horrific prison in our epoch.