November 22, 2008
Syria arrests top dissidents
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syria arrested 12 prominent dissidents this week in a new crackdown on those campaigning for political freedoms and improved relations with Lebanon.
The roundup of lawyers, writers and activists raised alarms that President Bashar Assad's government was girding for a new showdown with the international community over Syria's meddling in neighboring Lebanon.
Among those arrested was Anwar al-Bunni, a leading lawyer who often defends political prisoners. Secret police dragged him screaming from his home Wednesday night, while his family and neighbors watched.
"He asked them to show an arrest warrant, but they just forced him into a car and drove off," said his brother, Akram al-Bunni. "He was shouting and struggling the entire time."
The detentions came as the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution Wednesday calling on Syria to establish diplomatic ties and demarcate its border with Lebanon. Syria has been under international pressure since the February 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former primer minister, Rafik Hariri. After his killing, Syria was forced to withdraw thousands of troops it had kept in Lebanon for 29 years. And a UN investigation last year implicated top Syrian officials in the assassination.
All of those arrested in recent days had signed a petition last week calling on Assad's regime to improve relations with Lebanon by opening an embassy in Beirut and drawing a permanent border between the countries. About 500 intellectuals and activists from both countries signed the statement, called the Damascus-Beirut Declaration.
The wave of detentions began Sunday with the arrest of Michel Kilo, a prominent writer and democracy activist. In interviews with Arab and foreign media, al-Bunni strongly criticized Kilo's detention. Just hours before his own arrest, al-Bunni issued a statement condemning the government for charging Kilo with political crimes that could lead to decades in prison. Kilo's arrest has already brought Syria international condemnation.
Renowned Syrian-born poet Adonis told a Lebanese newspaper: "I was hoping the Syrian regime will no longer arrest a person for his thinking or political opinion, especially when he is nonviolent and does not belong to a terrorist organization."
Syrian authorities have detained Kilo and al-Bunni many times in recent years. When al-Bunni opened a human rights center in Damascus with European funding in February, it was quickly shut down by the regime. But rights campaigners say the current round of arrests is more troubling because it happened so quickly after the declaration's release. The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said this week's detentions marked the widest crackdown on political activity since September 2001, when dozens were arrested and democracy forums that sprouted up in homes were shuttered. It was the end of a period of limited political freedom called the "Damascus Spring," which followed Assad's rise to power after the death of his father in June 2000.
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