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By:
Dr. Haytham Manna
Spokesperson of the Arab Commission for Human RightsDamascus-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 |