Human Rights Watch welcomed the news that some political prisoners in Syria were being released, and urged the government to disclose their names.
"This is a positive step, and we hope it is the beginning of a process that will finally empty Syrian jails of those unjustly imprisoned," said Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "The government should also immediately make public the names of those released."
It was not known if three Syrian human rights activists were among those being freed. Nizar Nayouf, Afif Muzhir, and Muhamed Ali Habib are serving long prison sentences imposed in 1992, following unfair trials in the state security court. The three men were active in a fledging human rights network in Syria known as the Committees for the Defense of Democratic Freedoms and Human Rights in Syria (CDF). Nayouf was sentenced to ten years, and Muzhir and Habib to nine years. Nayouf, who is held in Mezze military prison, is known to be in poor health. Over the last several years Human Rights Watch and other international organizations have campaigned for his release on humanitarian grounds.
Freedom of expression and association have been severely restricted in Syria, and thousands were imprisoned in the last two decades for the peaceable exercise of these rights, many for membership in unauthorized political organizations. Syria has no law permitting the legal establishment of political parties, which forced opposition groups to operate clandestinely.
Presidential amnesties have steadily reduced the number of Syrian political prisoners to the current level of approximately 1,500 to 1,600, many of them arbitrarily arrested and detained, tortured, and unfairly or secretly tried. In addition, there are possibly hundreds or more prisoners of Lebanese, Palestinian and other nationalities who were "disappeared" in Lebanon and are known or believed to be in Syrian custody.
"The government should continue to identify all persons imprisoned for nonviolent political offenses and release them immediately," Megally added.
Human Rights Watch also recommended that the government take immediate steps to facilitate the resumption of normal lives by former prisoners. It said that the practice of arbitrarily denying passports should come to an end, and that the deprivation of civil rights that accompanied sentences handed down by the state security court should be rescinded. The practical effect of the rights ban, which under Syrian law begins from the day of sentencing to ten years after the expiration of the sentence, is that such individuals cannot vote, run for office, serve in the councils of syndicates, or work in the public sector.
