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posted by n1 on Friday October 09 2015, @10:27PM   Printer-friendly

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and 28 other organizations have issued a joint press release calling for the Syrian government to reveal the whereabouts of imprisoned technologist, open source developer, and "free culture advocate" Bassel Khartabil. EFF had reported on Wednesday that military police with a "top secret" sealed order moved Bassel and a cellmate from the Adra civilian jail to an undisclosed location.

Bassel "Safadi" Khartabil is one of five individuals and cases currently listed in EFF's "Offline: Imprisoned and Censored Around the World" campaign:

In 2011, after the protests began in Syria, Palestinian-Syrian software developer Bassel (Safadi) Khartabil kept the world updated on unjust arrests occurring in the country. He worked with his global contacts in the information technology world, including EFF activists, to disseminate information to Syrian contacts on how to stay safer online.

Bassel had long been a key figure in the Syrian tech community. He co-founded Aiki Lab, a hackerspace in Damascus, led the Creative Commons Syria project, and regularly contributed code and content to Mozilla, Wikipedia, the Openfontlibrary, and the Openclipart Library.

As the situation in Syria grew more unstable, Bassel saw more of his friends arrested. In March of 2012, his worldwide community of friends began to worry when Bassel's own online voice went silent. Unbeknown to his family and friends, on March 15, 2012, Bassel was arrested in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. It wasn't until July 2012 that his supporters discovered—thanks to former detainees at Kfar Souseh—that he was being held at the General Intelligence Directorate there.

In October 2012, Amnesty International confirmed that Bassel was being held at Kafr Souseh, relaying fears for his safety amidst local claims of torture. In response to this information, many groups and individuals called for Bassel's immediate release and championed his case via FreeBassel.org, a campaign run by a coalition of his friends and supporters.

Bassel was eventually charged in December 2012 with "spying for an enemy state." As members of the European Parliament, Charles Tannock and Ana Gomes, noted in their 2013 address to the European Commission on behalf of Bassel, "it is strongly suspected that his arrest was part of an effort to restrict access to online communities and discourses and stifle free expression in Syria." It was Bassel's visibility as a technologist and activist that made him a target for detention.

The press release was also made available in Arabic, French, and Spanish.


Original Submission

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Amnesty International reports

Extrajudicial execution of Bassel Khartabil a grim reminder of Syrian prison horrors

[...] Bassel Khartabil, was born and raised in Syria to a Palestinian family. He worked as a software developer and was a prominent free speech activist. Before his arrest, Bassel Khartabil used his technical expertise to help advance freedom of speech and access to information via the internet. He has won many awards, including the 2013 Index on Censorship Digital Freedom Award for using technology to promote an open and free internet, and was named one of Foreign Policy magazine's Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2012 "for insisting, against all odds, on a peaceful Syrian revolution".

[...] Bassel was arrested on 15 March 2012 by the Syrian Military Intelligence and held in incommunicado detention for eight months before being moved to 'Adra prison in December 2012. He remained in 'Adra until 3 October 2015, when he managed to inform his family that he was being transferred to an undisclosed location. Since then, his whereabouts remained unknown.

[...] Bassel Khartabil's family announced his death on 1 August 2017 after receiving information that he was killed in 2015 after allegedly being "tried" and "sentenced to death" by the military field court in Al-Qaboun, Damascus in a secret hearing. These courts are notorious for conducting closed-door proceedings that do not meet the minimum international standards for a fair trial.

[...] Responding to news of the execution of Syrian-Palestinian human rights activist Bassel Khartabil today, Anna Neistat, Amnesty International's Senior Director of Research said:

"We are deeply saddened and outraged at this awful news. Bassel Khartabil will always be remembered as a symbol of courage, who peacefully fought for freedom to the very end. Our thoughts are with his family.

"Bassel Khartabil's death is a grim reminder of the horrors that take place in Syrian prisons every day. The tens of thousands of people currently locked away inside Syrian government detention facilities face torture, ill-treatment and extra-judicial executions. These cruel acts undoubtedly amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity."

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @10:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @10:46PM (#247621)

    Why should the world be concerned about a convicted criminal?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:13PM (#247632)

      The press release has a paragraph explaining why the conviction lacked due process.

      One of the NGOs which signed onto it has a page explaining why it's bad to hold prisoners in secret:

      https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/usa/us1004/4.htm [hrw.org]

      There's also a Wikipedia page on the topic:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_disappearance [wikipedia.org]

      Keep in mind that any of us might be deemed criminals.

      • (Score: 1, Troll) by GungnirSniper on Friday October 09 2015, @11:35PM

        by GungnirSniper (1671) on Friday October 09 2015, @11:35PM (#247637) Journal

        You post as though the Occidental world still believes in due process.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10 2015, @12:26AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10 2015, @12:26AM (#247653)

          There are indeed wrongs done in Western countries, such as my own. Indeed, I've personally been held, here, without what I would consider adequate due process. I don't see the shortcomings of the West as justification for the Syrian government to hide this prisoner. Your comment, as I read it, appears to express the fallacy of relative privation [rationalwiki.org].

          While he was a prisoner, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote

          Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Gravis on Saturday October 10 2015, @05:12AM

    by Gravis (4596) on Saturday October 10 2015, @05:12AM (#247703)

    he's been tortured for information and will be killed soon (if he's not already dead). there is nothing this campaign can do to change that.