November 8, 2010 by sks
Syrian Committee for Human Rights – MAD, Kurdish Organization for Defending Human Rights and Public Freedoms in Syria – DAD, Human Rights Organization in Syria – MAF and Kurdish Committee for Human Rights in Syria – al-Rased report that Mustafa Ismail was sentenced at the Criminal Military Court in Aleppo, on Sunday 7 November 2011, in case no. 790 of 2010. The lawyer and writer was sentenced to seven years imprisonment under Articles 267 and 278 of the Syrian Penal Code. His sentence was reduced to two and a half years.
International Support Kurds in Syria Association – SKS joins with the Syrian Committee for Human Rights – MAD, Kurdish Organization for Defending Human Rights and Public Freedoms in Syria – DAD, Human Rights Organization in Syria – MAF, and Kurdish Committee for Human Rights in Syria – al-Rased organizations to very strongly condemn this unjust sentence issued against the writer and lawyer, Mustafa Ismail. They consider the arrest and sentencing to be an arbitrary denial of his right to express his views, and to be a clear violation of the Declaration on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly Resolution 52/144 on 12 September 1998, specifically in articles 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. This procedure is an expression of the insistence of the Syrian authorities that they will move forward to continue their violation of the simplest of public freedoms. The prosecution of writers and political activists and human rights activists, civil society and those interested in public affairs in Syria conflicts with Syria’s international commitments on human rights through the ratification of relevant international conventions.
These organisations call upon the Syrian government to close the file on the trial and drop all charges against the writer and lawyer, Mustafa Ismail. They call for the trial of Syrian citizens in front of special courts to be stopped, including military trials, because this violates a person’s right to a fair trial; and they call for the commitment of the Syrian government to all international agreements on human rights that have been signed and ratified.
They call for the commitment of the Syrian government to recommendations of the Commission on Human Rights in its 84th session, July 2005, and in particular the sixth paragraph on non-compliance with the provisions of the International Covenant in relation to civil and political rights during a state of emergency – Article 4. They ask that these rights are respected, including Articles 9, 14, 19 and 22, and paragraph 12 of these recommendations, which require the State Party (Syria) to immediately release all persons detained due to activities in the field of human rights, and to put an end to all practices of harassment and intimidation against the defenders of rights.
They call for the Syrian Government to take urgent measures to revise all legislation that restricts the activities of human rights organizations, and legislation in relation to the State of Emergency, which must not be used as a pretext for the suppression of activities designed to promote and protect human rights.
7 November 2010
Previous reports:
http://supportkurds.org/news/3440/
http://supportkurds.org/news/fatima-hawool-mustafa-ismail-tayfur-ibrahim-in-court/
http://supportkurds.org/news/mustafa-ismail-appears-in-court-in-syria/
http://supportkurds.org/news/mustafa-ismail-still-detained/
http://supportkurds.org/news/amnesty-international-syria-kurdish-lawyer-detained-risks-torture
http://supportkurds.org/news/trial-of-kurdish-youths-adjourned-to-29-december-2009
http://supportkurds.org/news/syria-di-member-mr-mustafa-ismail-arrested
