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You are here: Home / Library / Books / ‎3. Law No. 49‎

‎3. Law No. 49‎

14-January-2008 By shrc_admin

First: Rulings of the Supreme State Security Court


The Syrian regime stepped up its crackdown on the Muslim ‎Brotherhood Movement. The Supreme State Security Court ‎continued sentencing to death all the detainees that had been ‎subjected to trial on the charge of being members thereof, ‎according to Law No. 49 of 1980 the first article of which states ‎that “each and everyone belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood ‎Movement is considered a criminal who will be sentenced to ‎death”. The article is applicable to the members of the ‎movement, their proponents, their children and whoever ‎contacts them. But such rulings, after being fixed, confirmed ‎and emphasised are not enforced nowadays, as they used to ‎be in the 1980s and 1990s, but rather reduced to 12 years in ‎prison with hard labour, deprivation of civil rights, interdiction ‎and fines. It is noteworthy that most of those against whom the ‎unjust judgments were passed were the children or relatives of ‎members in the Muslim Brotherhood Movement living in ‎coercive exile since the 1980s. Those coercively exiled ‎individuals returned home after properly referring to their ‎respective Syrian embassies or after promises of pardon given ‎to relatives of theirs referring to the proper security authorities ‎in Syria on their behalf. But once they arrived in the country ‎they were arrested, subjected to torture and ill-treatment and ‎were sentenced to death in accordance with the above-‎mentioned law. Notably, the court did not declare such rulings ‎clearly. Conversely, the former Minister of Information ‘Adnan ‎‎’Imran alleged in several interviews that Law No. 49 had been ‎frozen whereas other officials claimed in their press ‎statements that it was cancelled. However, reactivating the ‎Law in this manner implies the renewal of the nihilistic ‎crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood Movement.‎


Consequently, the Exceptional Supreme State Security Court, ‎in application of the first article of Law No. 49 of 1980, ‎sentenced to death dozens of persons, and then reduced the ‎sentences to 12 years in prison with hard labour, deprivation of ‎civil rights, interdiction and fines. Among those individuals ‎were the youth Muhammad Usama Sayes (25 June 2006) ‎from Aleppo after being deported by the British Authorities who ‎denied him asylum because his father, not he himself, was a ‎member of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement, and ‘Abdul-‎Rahman al-Mousa (27 June 2006) from Hama, who had been ‎arbitrarily deported from the USA to Syria on 19 January 2005 ‎for violating immigration laws. He was arrested as soon as he ‎landed at Damascus International Airport and was subjected to ‎torture and ill treatment. The others were Ahmad  Mustafa ‎Ibrahim from Aleppo (8 October 2006) and three youths from ‎the city of Jisr al-Shughur; Yusuf ‘Umar Husain, Muhammad ‎Thabit Hilli and Fu’ad Ali al-Shughari. The three of them had ‎left the country with their families in the early 1980s, when they ‎were little children and returned in 2005 from their compulsory ‎exile in Iraq in the wake of the horrific deterioration of security ‎and the deliberate targeting of Syrian residents. On 11 ‎February 2007, a sentence was passed against the detainee ‎Muhammad Haidar Zammar of German nationality. Zammar ‎had been abducted in Morocco in 2002 with the help of the ‎American and German intelligence on charges related to ‎terrorism. He disappeared in the Palestinian Branch for four ‎years under military interrogation before being transferred in ‎late 2006 to Sednaya prison and presented for trial before the ‎Supreme State Security Court when it had been proven that ‎the accusations of terrorism against him were false. ‎Meanwhile, a sentence was passed against Mahmud ‎Muhammad Summaq (62) from Ariha in the province of Idlib. ‎He was one of the exiles of the 1980s and was a resident in ‎Yemen and had worked there since 1981. He returned to Syria ‎pursuant to information he had received that his case had ‎been settled. But the Syrian Intelligence apparatus arrested ‎him as soon as he arrived in Syria on 12 April 2005 and ‎subjected him to torture.  Sentences were passed against Ali ‎Fu’ad al-Shaghri on 20 May 2007, Abdul-Jabbar ‘Llawi (35)  ‎from Suraqib in Idlib Province, Yasin Nafi’ al-Sayil (30) from ‎the Deir Alzoor Province on 25 March 2007, 72 year old Yusuf ‎Najiyyah, a returnee from Saudi Arabia and Muwafaq Qarmah ‎‎(44) on 28 August 2007, Ali Ahmad al-‘Ajeel  on 30 September ‎‎2007,  and Ali Ibrahim Ahmad al-Khalaf (60), who had been ‎detained since 6 November 2005, on 4 November 2007, and ‎others.‎


Due to attempt to affiliate to the Muslim Brotherhood ‎Movement, the detainees were sentenced to death and then ‎the sentence was reduced to 12, 8, or 6 years in prison with ‎hard labour, deprivation of civil rights, interdiction and fines.‎


Similarly, on 27 February 2007 the Exceptional Supreme State ‎Security Court (SSSC) sentenced to death Sami Ali Dirbak ‎‎(43) from Banyas for committing the crime of affiliation to the ‎Muslim Brotherhood Movement. The sentence was then ‎reduced to 8 years in prison with hard labour. Sentences of 6 ‎years in prison were the lot of Khalid  Ahmad Ahmad (46) from ‎Latakia, Tariq Abdullah al-Hallaq (30), Ali  Muhammad Isma’il ‎‎(35), Abdul Nasir Taha Dirbak (35), and Jamal  Jameel Jallul ‎‎(49), all from Banyas. On 4 November 2007 the court passed a ‎similar judgment against Usama Ahmad ‘Abdeen, who holds ‎the German nationality. On 1 April 2007 Ali Mahmud Shahood  ‎‎’Umar from Salqeen in Idlib was sentenced to 6 years in ‎prison.‎


Second: The Disappeared‎


Nothing new has emerged this year concerning the issue of ‎the disappeared in Syria, numbering about 17000 Syrian ‎citizens who were detained in the late 1970s and early 1980s ‎and whose traces have vanished. Syrian authorities try to ‎ignore the existence of this problem and severely punish ‎whoever discusses this issue or enquires after any of his or ‎her relatives that have disappeared in the prisons of the Syrian ‎regime. This, in spite of the urgent legal situations that require ‎settlement after the elapse of three decades since their ‎detention and subsequent disappearance. The SHRC received ‎numerous enquiries from the relatives of the disappeared, and ‎when the Committee clarified the circumstances and situations ‎that led to their disappearance in the prisons of  Tadmur, Al-‎Mazzah, Kafar Susah and al-Baluna and the interrogation ‎centres of the various intelligence and security apparatuses, ‎they would not welcome the news that their relatives had died ‎or been killed in cold blood, or that they were executed ‎following on-the-spot trials, or  had died as a result of diseases ‎and epidemics that permeated the Syrian prisons. Under the ‎new issues the universal human rights organisations have ‎ignored this issue, while some local organisations regard it as ‎a bygone matter unrelated to the present, and refer to it with ‎such statements as unequal to their human responsibilities.‎


Third: The Exiled


Since the early 1980s, thousands of Syrian citizens have been ‎living outside Syria coercively because they, their children and ‎grandchildren are subjected to Law No. 49 of 1980, which ‎sentences the members of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement ‎and their supporters to death. Syrian authorities enforce this ‎unjust law on whoever contacts such persons. Coercive exiles ‎scattered in the neighbouring countries and the Arab region ‎and with time and due to the complications of their respective ‎circumstances, some of them were forced to depart for Europe ‎and the Americas.  ‎


Last year some citizens tried to settle their cases with the ‎Syrian authorities in accordance with the conditions of the ‎security forces, but when they arrived in Syria, they were ‎detained and were sentenced according  to Law No. 49 of ‎‎1980 (See the section on the Ordeal of the Returnees and ‎Visitors). In the wake of the war that broke out in Iraq in March ‎‎2003, many citizens were forced to return to Syria to be ‎detained and tried according to the above-mentioned law. As ‎for those who are still abroad, the Syrian regime is trying to ‎press the governments to dismiss them. The security ‎authorities, taking advantage of their cooperation with the ‎Americans in respect of the so-called “war on terror”, have ‎provided them with lists of hundreds of Syrian dissidents as ‎terrorists. Some ambassadors of the Syrian regime have, ‎during the current year, demanded that certain exiles and ‎residents in some Arab and European countries be handed ‎over, and they tried to exert pressure in this direction. In ‎several meetings between the Syrian government and its ‎counterparts from neighbouring counties this issue was ‎discussed. Now and then, the exiles become the victims of the ‎closeness in official relations and bargaining chips between ‎the Syrian regime and some of these countries. Some of the ‎exiles whose petition for refuge to a secure location was ‎denied were then deported to Syria to face detention and cruel ‎trials before the Exceptional State Security Court.‎


Under such continuous pressures, the ordeal of the exiles who ‎are living abroad worsens, as many of them lose their ‘legal ‎identity’ as Syrian citizens as well as their belongings to a ‎specified country and their unstable residence in various ‎countries depending on their being favoured or rejected ‎according to the fluctuations in political circumstances. The ‎families of the exiled unwillingly scatter among various ‎countries, so that they cannot meet each other or live together. ‎Many of them suffer from unemployment, inability to educate ‎their children, and many social, economic and psychological ‎problems. We have referred to some examples in some of the ‎sections of the report, mentioning names and numbers. As for ‎Syrian Ministry of Expatriates Affairs, and rather than giving ‎priority to the solution and settlement of this issue, the Minister ‎is apparently exclusively concerned with establishing ‎relationships with the rich, the business communities and ‎those supporting the Regime, while ignoring those and similar ‎people who become targets for their aggression as was the ‎case on several occasions in the last year.‎


During the last summer vacation of 2007, the Syrian Human ‎Rights Committee recorded some images of the sufferings ‎experienced by the families of the exiles, some of whom can ‎visit Syria. They are exposed to lengthy stopping on the land ‎borders and at airports and ordered to refer to the intelligence ‎and security centres in their respective provinces and the ‎capital. The wife and children are required to give precise ‎information about the husband or father, his biography, life ‎circumstances and social environment. They are usually faced ‎with threats, insults, prevention from travel and return, and ‎sometimes with confinement, detention, ill-treatment and ‎torture (See the report: The Suffering of the Families of the ‎Coercive Exiles during the Summer Vacation of 2007).‎

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Law 49, Sednaya Prison, Tadmur Prison, The Supreme State Security Court (SSSC)

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