Mar 17, 2011 | News
The ICJ today called on the Syrian authorities to end their persistent attacks on human rights defenders and persons detained for political reasons and the members of their families.
On 16 March 2011, a group of protesters, led by family members of detainees, were peacefully demonstrating outside the Ministry of the Interior in Damascus, calling for the release of their relatives. Plain-clothed security officers launched a violent crackdown on the demonstrators, physically assaulting and arresting at least 25 of them. Detainees were taken to unknown locations and are reportedly held in incommunicado detention.
Mar 17, 2011 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
Since 1963, under the framework of a State of Emergency, serious and widespread human rights violations have been committed in Syria, including torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests and detentions.
Suspected political opponents, human rights lawyers and other defenders have been regularly and arbitrarily detained, ill-treated and, in many cases, held without charge or trial for several years. Others have been convicted and sentenced, under the emergency law and other restrictive dispositions of the Syrian Penal Code (in particular Articles 267,273, 285, 286, 287, 288, and 307),to lengthy prison terms after grossly unfair trials before military courts, the Supreme State Security Court (SSSC), or civilian courts.
In spite of the persistent and consistent reports of these human rights violations, Syrian authorities have failed to investigate them promptly and independently, and to bring to justice State officials and laws enforcement officers allegedly responsible for these violations. They have enjoyed effective impunity.
Syria-UPR submission ICJ-non-legal submission-2011 (full text, PDF)
Feb 25, 2011 | News
The ICJ welcomes the adoption today by the UN Human Rights Council of one of the strongest resolutions in the short history of the five-year old Council.
During a special session on the situation of human rights in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, the ICJ had called on the Human Rights Council to take the strongest possible action in response to the gross and systematic human rights violations being committed in Libya.
Libya-HRC-humanrightsviolations-news-2011 (full text, PDF)
Feb 22, 2011 | News
The ICJ today called on the Libyan authorities to immediately end the ongoing gross human rights violations committed by security forces and pro-government militia against the civilian population in Libya.
The ICJ also urged the international community to take robust measures to end the deadly attacks against Libyan demonstrators and to ensure the immediate protection of civilians.
Libya-humanrightsviolations-news-2011 (full text, PDF)
Feb 20, 2011
Report of mission to to monitor the hearings of the trial of Haytham Al-Maleh, prominent Syrian human rights lawyer. The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders – a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) carried out six missions1 to Damascus between February and July 2010 to monitor the hearings of the trial of Haytham Al-Maleh, an 80-year-old prominent Syrian human rights lawyer and former President of the Human Rights Association in Syria (HRAS). Haytham Al-Maleh was unlawfully arrested by officers of the General Intelligence Service on 14 October 2009 and prosecuted before the Second Military Court of Damascus on the grounds of “transferring false and exaggerated news that weaken national sentiments,” “spreading false or exaggerated information abroad which undermines the prestige of the State,” and “slandering the judicial system.”
