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By: Dr. Haytham Manna
Spokesperson of the Arab Commission for
Human Rights
Damascus-August, 16th,
2008-August, 30th, 2008
Introduction
On August, 26th, I was assigned to
attend the Damascus Criminal Court
in the Syrian capital by the Arab Commission for Human
Rights, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and the
French Human Rights Observatory, and in coordination with the
HCHR and its concerned rapporteurs, and help from Damascus
center for Theoretical Studies and Civil Rights and Syrian human
rights organizations. The session was dedicated to hearing the
public prosecution and the defense in the case of Damascus
Declaration for Democratic National Change's (DDDNC) leaders who
held a regular meeting on Dec, 1st, 2007 in house of
Mr. Riad Saif.
First of all, this is an initial report. It
is a prelude for a report under preparation to be offered to the
HCHR and the Human Rights Council in Geneva and subcommittee on
human rights in the European parliament, the Arab League
Secretary-General and concerned NGOs and IGOs with a copy to be
sent to Syrian presidency.
Beginning of the case
On Dec., 1st, 2007, 163 members of
DDDNC convened to elect a national council for the DDDNC and
five members to lead the council from among this group. The
meeting included a wide spectrum across political opposition an
addition leading human rights defenders and supporters of the
DDDNC. The DDDNC declaration called for giving key rights to all
Syrians and for fully adhering international human rights
standard and democratization covenants and the rule of law.
In the wake of this meeting, more than 40
participants in the national council were arrested or subpoenaed
including 12 who were sent to civil prisons and are currently
under trial. There are also manhunts and arrests for other DDDNC
members other than this case (see annex 1).
Before the session
Before the court session, I contacted a
number of the defense lawyers, families of the detainees, Syrian
human rights defenders and legal figures. I also met a number of
those who took in the meeting itself to be sure of some
information and complaints mentioned in messages sent to the
Arab Commission for Human Rights. They are related to key issues
which flagrantly violate the Syrian constitution and Syria
commitments in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, especially in the
relation between the detainee and the lawyer, investigating
conditions, arrest conditions, the situation surrounding
political prisoners, the health conditions and security
authorities' treatment with them. I wanted also to update the
information mentioned in the report issued by Damascus Center
for Theoretical and Civil Rights Studies. I asked about some
legal issues from two professors at the Faculty of Law- Damascus
University, and a number of former judges and lawyers. Also, I
met a top political official to know the government's viewpoint
towards this file and the information of the correspondent and
editor of
Annida website.
Results of the hearings ahead of this session
included concentration of government parties on the legal side
and submitting documents that have not relation with the
conference session in question and repeatedly saying that:
(Given that Syria is targeted by several regional and
international parties, that the state of emergency is not lifted
yet and that ordinary justice in Syria is independent from the
executive authority).
I gathered information about conditions of
the detainees, including a testimony of an ordinary prisoner who
was released and was in the same cell of two of the DDDNC
prisoners. Also, Hassan Abdel Azim and Haytham Al-Maleh
furnished me with legal information related to this file and
information related to similar files. As for the official view,
I reminded them that Syrian authorities give 10 replies to the
Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Council, four of
them in written intervention, in response to my written or oral
comments in front of the stated organizations. The Syrian
authorities said in these replies that emergency laws are not
practically applied in the country, that they are applied in
least possible limits in issues violating foreign security. I
also mentioned the reply of the Syrian delegation to the United
Nations on my comment seven years ago, in which I acknowledged
that justice in Syria needs deep overhaul and that the problem
of the independence of judicial establishments is general in the
region, not only in Syria.
The Session
According to a tradition applied all over the
world- in which the international observor visits the Presiding
Judge before the session to tell him of his human rights mission
and ask him about some issues related to the case- I asked to
see President Judge Mohiddine Al-Hallaq, who agreed to meet me
along with Haytham Al-Maleh, the first chairman of a Human
Rights Society in Syria, and Naser al Ghazali President of
Damascus center for Theoretical Studies and Civil Rights. I
asked the Presiding Judge a question about the issue of release
in the Syrian criminal law, to be stunned by his reply in which
he said he is as a judge not authorized to reply or speak in any
issue without a letter from the Minister of Justice. I told the
President that I was in more than a hundred international
missions in more than thirty countries, and never a tribunal
President has demanded such a letter to reply to a general legal
question. After several minutes of discussion, Presiding Judge
Al-Hallaq agreed to answer this question. He also answered
another question about the legal term for release according to
Syrian criminal law, he pointed out that law gives the court
this right at any moment, and that it is up to chief justice.
After that, I went to the courtroom which was
overcrowded and included western diplomats, Arab human rights
defenders, a group of Syrian lawyers, relatives of the detainees
and writers and journalists across the political spectrum. I
came closer the 12 detainees and asked them three traditional
questions generally asked in any judicial observation:
The First Question: have any of you me his
defense lawyer alone?
The Second Question: Are the least rules of
dealing with prisoners respected, including the conditions?
The Third Question: How have they dealt with
the detainee in arrest and investigation?
I was shocked that the simplest rights of
allowing the observer to listen to prisoners were violated.
After a first attempt to take me away and prevent me from
listening to the detainees, one of the police elements ordered
me to stop asking those questions but I refused and informed him
that my duty is to continue. After that, a police officer asked
me to keep away from them, but I refused and continued my work.
I explained to another one that this is integral part of my
mission and continued directing questions to detainees. After
about ten minutes, in which I wrote down the most important
notes, a police lieutenant colonel asked me to meet the
Presiding Judge in his office. I went to the Presiding Judge who
told me that I cause chaos, that the court is not a press
conference hall and that I exceeded my right as an observer. I
quietly explained to him that this is my main job, that I did
not answer family questions because most detainees know me, that
neutrality is a loose word in political trials, and that the
core of objectivity is not fabricating facts or telling lies.
Then, I gave him the notebook in which I wrote down my notes. It
included only the Presiding Judge's name. Here, the chief
justice got confused, and asked:" Why only my name, where are
names of the other judges?. I gave the notebook to another judge
to write his name but he refused and the other judge refused
too. Then I said to the chief justice:" In all conditions, I
have now accurate answers to my main questions.
Very briefly, as I will explain this in a
detailed report to be handed to the High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Navanethem Pillay, I 'd like to say that the answers to
the three questions confirm worries of the international, Arab
and Syrian NGOs and IGOs that the most important rules of a fair
trial that the United Nations approved, and in which the Syrian
Arab Republic ratified, are violated. Also violated are the UN
Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners adopted in the
First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the
Treatment of Offenders in which Syria took part and which was
approved by the ECOSOC in 1977. The right to individually meet a
lawyer was absent. Visiting prisoners requires a 1978 visit
permit that requires approval of the director of the bar
association branch and signature of the Attorney General, in a
flagrant intervention in lawyers rights and in security
restrictions which are only found in countries which aren’t
signatories to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights like Saudi Arabia
or geographically outside the judicial sphere like North Korea.
As for psychological and physical integrity of the detainees, I
was really worried, specially that some of them are jailed in
mass cells with serious prisoners. Also, four may face potential
health risks because of lacking the necessary medical care for
them.
When the Presiding Judge arrived in the
courtroom, another incident outside the judicial tradition took
place: The chief justice read the pleading of the prosecution. I
was even more shocked when a number of lawyers told me that this
is not restricted to this trial in particular, it also happens
in ordinary cases. The main rules of the court performance
include that the pleading of the public prosecution is oral and
direct, not through a proxy. However, the Presiding Judge
completed the session very quickly. It was as if we were in
front of a convicting session which has no form or content, only
restricted to looking at the accused and reading the bill of
indictment (defaming the reputation of the country, stirring
doctrinal and sectarian ideas, establishing an illegal
organization to hold a coup and spreading false news), and
making sure that they approve to entrust a defense team to
defend them. Also, the detainees were allowed to talk. Only five
detainees were allowed to speak a total of less than a hundred
words. A hundred words for five persons.
The first one to demand a speech was detainee
Riad Saif who said:" With all my respect to the court, we
confirm that our case is a case of a freedom of opinion, not a
case of this bill of indictment. Any defense should be based on
only this content. We denied the charges directed against us and
we confirm our attitude of demanding a national reform program
in Syria that starts first with the freedom of speech".
He was followed by detainee Akram Al-Bunni
who said:" Such a kind of trials is useless because submitting a
legal defense is a mere décor and the case is politically
motivated".
As for detainee Fayez Sara, after he showed
his respect to the court, he pointed to the issue of visits
topic and that the cases of freedom of speech should have an
appropriate legal environment, especially when this freedom of
speech is exercised publicly and peacefully.
When the judge interrupted him to tell him
that such views should be said through the defense lawyers,
Fayez Sara informed him that the accused are denied the right to
meet or consult their lawyers privately. The judge disavowed
responsibility for prison conditions restricting his authority
to the courtroom.
Detainee Walid Al Bunni wondered where are
the papers upon which such hideous charges have been directed.
As for detainee Ali Al-Abdallah, he said:" We
see that this case is politically motivated, and the defense is
a mere decor. As for the charges against us, they are
unacceptable, unreasonable in this age and we demand them
dropped".
Then, the Presiding Judge asked the accused
whether they approve the defense team and that questions are
referred to it, to declare the session adjourned till Sep., 24th,
2008.
Initial deduction
From the confirmed information, I noticed
that: Syrian authorities don't respect normal detention
conditions or the acceptable investigation conditions approved
by international human rights standards (Particularly:
the right to a fair trial before an
independent and impartial court in conformity with Syria's own
commitments, in particular Article 10 of the 1948 UNUDHR and
Article 14.1 to 14.5 of the 1966 United Nations International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and ensure that the
procedure is in conformity with the standards and principles
adopted by the United Nations bodies, including the 1985 Basic
Principles for the Independence of the Judiciary and the 1990
Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors).. Also, they lack
the UN Minimum Rules for the Treatment of prisoners.
They main conditions for the defense work are
absent. The treatment with some detainees show there is a
malicious attitude that makes prison conditions an additional
punishment added to the depriving them of their freedom.
Also, the interviews I held and reading into
the ordinary criminal laws, confirmed what was done by : Fida Al
Horani 2- Ahmed Tohmeh 3- Akram Al-Bunni 4- Ali Saleh Abdullah 5
- Yasser Tayser Aleiti 6-
Walid Eid Al-Bunni 7- Jabr Al Shoufi 8 - Fayez Mohamed Dib Sara
9- Mohamed Asaad Haj Darwish 10- Marwan Mohamad Anwar Al-Esh 11-
Riad Saif Bin Mosallam 12 - Talal Abu Dan, does not constitute a
crime, even in the court assessment. Consequently, all detainees
should be immediately and unconditionally released or at least,
bring on bail.
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Translated by: Khaled Hamzeh
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