We are republishing this appeal from Syrian left-wing activists which has been widely circulated and first appeared on www.marxist.com. The appeal calls for clarification of the whereabouts of several left-wing activists who have disappeared over the last months and the release of all those imprisoned. We encourage our readers to support their appeal and write letters of protest.
Three months ago, five activists of the Communist Labour Party in Syria (Abbas Ibrahim Abbas, Hassan Kazemi, Tawfik Omran, Ghassan Hassan, Ahmed Inihawi) were arrested by the secret police in the province of Hama. The reasons for their arrest are unknown! The worst is that the place of detention is still unknown, too!
Their family (wives, sons and brothers) are trying to find out what happened with them. The state bodies are not capable of reassuring them of their whereabouts, lives and health. They are not even capable of making an effort to show an interest in finding those Syrian nationals who have been arrested, or even to answer whether they are still on home soil or not.
What kind of situation is this country going through? Is it governed by law? Would any other nation allow this on its territory?
A week ago, the activist Mohammed Musa was arrested. He is the first secretary of the leftist Kurdish party in Syria. The pretext for his arrest was that he needed to complete the his sentence. The arrest was because of his political affiliation and not for any other reason!
Prior to this, on 28 July, Muhannad al-Hasani was arrested, after repeated calls, and referred to the judiciary under the charge of ‘weakening the national sentiment’. In reality he has been arrested for being an activist in the defense of human rights.
We condemn political arrests in general but in particular the arrests happening on the basis of martial law.
We express our deep concern at the growing number of arrests and we declare our complete solidarity with all detained citizens for their opinions, political affiliations or peaceful activities.
We demand that the state observe full transparency and respect for civil law in dealing with them and that their rights are fully upheld including the right of their relatives to visit them and to check on their conditions, and the causes of their detention.
We call for their immediate release without further delay, and the suspension of martial law and the emergency law
Damascus on 22/8/2009
Signed by:
Communist Labour Party (Syria)
Communist Syrian Party (Political Office)
Kurdish Democracy Party
Left Kurdish Party
Democratic Marxist Assembly
Democratic Arabic Socialist United Party
Dr. Abd Alaziz Alkhair
Dr Ahmed Faez Alfwaz
Moustafa Sakher
Please send messages of protest to your respective Syrian embassy (see http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/Syria/syria.htm ) and a copy to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Milions of workers came out on strike in defence of their pensions. This was the biggest such action for decades. The fight goes on!
