Two Syrian Activists Jailed Over Normalization with Lebanon

Beirut newspaper An Nahar reports that Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa were sentenced to three years in Syrian prison Sunday for demanding normalization of relations with Lebanon.Syria has not accepted the legitimacy of the existence of a separate, sovereign Lebanese state.There are no formal diplomatic relations between the two countries; there is no Syrian ambassador in Beirut, no Lebanese ambassador in Damascus.In Syrian textbooks Lebanon appears as part of “Greater Syria”.Below is An Nahar’s report:

Two Syrian Activists Jailed Over Normalization with Lebanon
Beirut, 13 May 07, 11:55
Prominent Syrian opposition activists Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa were sentenced to three years in prison Sunday for demanding normalization of relations with Lebanon, according to a Syrian human rights group. They are the latest dissidents to be jailed in recent weeks in a crackdown by the regime that has been condemned by the United States.

“Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa were sentenced to three years for weakening national sentiment,” Ammar Qorabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, told Agence France Presse. The two were arrested in May 2006 along with eight other democracy campaigners after they signed a declaration calling for radical reform of relations between Syria and neighboring Lebanon, which have been strained since the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri in 2005.

Two other dissidents, Sleiman Shummar and Khalil Hussein, were sentenced in absentia to 10 years in jail for weakening national sentiment and inciting a foreign country to attack Syria, Qorabi added. Last Thursday, Kamal Labwani was sentenced to 12 years in jail by a Damascus court in the harshest sentence against an opposition activist since President Bashar Assad came to power in 2000. Labwani was convicted of having “contacts with a foreign country aimed at encouraging it to attack Syria.”

Last month fellow political prisoner Anwar Bunni, a human rights lawyer, was jailed for five years after signing the petition on an appeal for radical reform in relations between Syria and neighboring Lebanon. Six leading opposition figures being detained in Syria — including Bunni and Labwani — warned earlier this month that the “repressive climate” in the country was worsening and called for the release of all political prisoners.(AFP-Naharnet)
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What do you think is the future of the minority Alawite Al Assad regime in Damascus?

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