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By: Dr. Haytham
Manna
Spokesperson of
the Arab Commission for Human Rights
Damascus-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
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