After Two Years Behind Bars Syrian State Security Court Sentences A Syrian Blogger Three Years For "Spreading False News"

This is simply outrageous and heartbreakening. I cannot imagine what his parents feel right now. He was arrested when he was 29 and now he will be released when he’s 34. and for what? for not giving the Syrian intelligence the names of people who spoke against the Syrian government in the forum he administrates. Yes, that’s Kareem Arbaji, Kareem is being sentenced because he is defending his friends, he is being sentenced as a punishment, because he defied not the “persona” of the government, but the very “system” of intelligentsia in Syria, where people got accustomed, out of fear and due to torture, to turning each other in to the government. Kareem did nothing “wrong” and said nothing “wrong”, but he paid two years for his “non-Syrian” principles, and now he is paying three more. This is unforgivable, they send children to Europe when they get raped, how you like them now grownups? hypocrite.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information , ANHRI, denounced the court order issued by the Syrian state security supreme court sentencing the young blogger Kareem Arbaji to 3 years of prison for spreading false news that weaken the nation’s spirit according to the article # 286 of the Syrian penal code.

Kareem already spent two years in prison, where he was arrested by military intelligence in June 2007 as he was an administrator of the net forum “Akhawya” (Brotherhood). Karim was detained for two years and three months till the court order was issued yesterday.

Kareem Arbaji was detained before being tried, he received a cruel and disproportionate sentence even if he was convicted. He was tortured during investigations and ill treated for more than two years in prison.

ANHRI requested the Syrian government to immediately release Kareem Arbaji and all prisoners of conscience in Syrian dungeons, to abolish arbitrary detention policy and stop the security interference in judiciary affairs.

ANHRI asserts that the charge against Arbaji is a false one , only used as a pretext to inhibit freedom of expression and repress activists.

ANHRI also urges the Syrian government to eliminate the state security court as it is a stain to the Syrian justice.

http://www.anhri.net/en/reports/2009/pr0914.shtml

7 thoughts on “After Two Years Behind Bars Syrian State Security Court Sentences A Syrian Blogger Three Years For "Spreading False News"”

  1. SyrianGavroche says:

    كريم حر… لأنو رفيقنا و منعرفو منعرف انو حر.. غصب عن الحجر و الحديد اللي حابسينو فيه…

    كريم ناطرينك.. و رح نظل ناطرينك.. الله يفك أسرك

  2. abu kareem says:

    Razan, Thank you for posting this; I really wish the Syrian blogosphere would be Kareem Arabaji and others rather getting distracted by what someone does in the privacy of their own. Except that the powers that be would rather have us do the latter as a distraction from what really matters.

  4. Pingback: Global Voices Advocacy » Syria: Blogger Kareem Arbaji Sentenced to Three Years in prison
  5. Joe Green says:

    My suggestion is for this person to get out of Syria and stay out. Freedom of speech, in middle east counties, is almost non-existant. Work ouside the country to show the world what vipers the government of Syria is.

    • Razan says:

      Those exactly the type of Syrians I hate. Freedom of speech is at stake in the whole world, not just in the Arab-Speaking countries. People around the world are working in their countries to defy such policies. Working within than without,is the only way for an authentic change, and some are prepared for the consequences.

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