 |
SOLIDA 
Syria no longer knows who languishes in its prisons, and why!: Damascus admits yet again the incommunicado detention of George Chalaweet The organization SOLIDA (Support for Lebanese Detained Arbitrarily) continues its campaign for the release of George Ayoub Chalaweet who was kidnapped in Beirut in 1994 and illegally transferred to Syria where he has been held incommunicado from his family since 1998. At the international level, his detention has been declared illegal by the UN Working Group on Illegal Detention who asked Syria to "take all necessary measures to remedy the situation" (Notification No. 17/2002, dated November 29, 2002, Syrian Arab Republic). Moreover, SOLIDA recently wrote to all the members of the French Members of Parliament requesting their intervention in favor of Mr. Chalaweet, and many parliamentarians wrote to President Assad, to the Embassy of the Syrian Arab Republic in Paris, and to the French Foreign Affairs Ministry, demanding his release. The French Ambassador to Paris, Mrs. Siba Nasser, replied by mail to several of the French MPs - her last letter dated April 19, 2004 - giving the following information: "George Chalaweet was arrested on May 4, 1994 for having committed several crimes, including the crime of espionage." "After his indictment and appearance in front of the relevant court, he was sentenced to 15 years of prison, a sentence he is currently serving." In these statements, Mrs. Nasser contradicted the statement issued by mail on September 25, 2002 by the Syrian Mission to Geneva which said that George Chalaweet had been arrested ".in 1992, following a car accident (.) that he intentionally caused" and that he had "received a twenty-year prison sentence". Even more strange were the contradicting descriptions by the two sources of Mr. George Chalaweet's origin and status. Whereas the Mission of Syria in Geneva spoke of the "Lebanese national George Chalaweet", the Syrian Embassy in Paris said that he "was born in Lebanon in 1962, of Syrian origin from the region of Soueida, and holder of the Syrian nationality." It is clear that Syria is fumbling in its own contradictions: It no longer knows when or why George Chalaweet has been arrested, and a mere reading of the letters by the so-called "competent" Syrian authorities makes one wonder if these authorities really know who is the individual in question. One thing is certain, though: George Chalaweet has been languishing for the past 10 years in a Syrian jail, along with dozens of other Lebanese nationals whose identity, let alone their existence, have been completely forgotten by the Syrian authorities. Perhaps, by lying repeatedly about the issue, by denying the detentions, and by falsifying the identities of their victims, the Syrian authorities have finally convinced themselves that the problem of the Lebanese detainees no longer exists. One more time, SOLIDA demands the immediate and unconditional release of all Lebanese detainees who suffer the same fate as George Chalaweet in the notorious prisons of Syria. Paris May 13, 2004 |
|
Read More in SHRC 
|
|
|