Front Line is concerned following reports of the continued detention of human rights defender, Mr Nizar Ristnawi, despite the end of his four-year prison sentence and despite an opinion by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) in March 2009 that the detention of Nizar Ristnawi is arbitrary. Nizar Ristnawi, aged 49, is a member of the Committee to Defend Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights in Syria and a founding member of the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Syria.

On 18 April 2005 Mr Nizar Ristnawi was arrested in Hamah city and held in incommunicado detention, without contact with the outside world including his family and lawyers, until August 2005. He was allegedly ill-treated during this period. In November 2005 he was officially charged and brought to trial before the Supreme State Security Court which on 18 November 2006 sentenced him to 4 years in prison for “spreading false news that could weaken the spirit of the nation” and “insulting the President of the Republic”. Convictions before the Supreme State Security Court cannot be appealed.

The opinion adopted by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) stated that the detention of Nizar Ristnawi was arbitrary because it could not be justified on any legal basis and was the result, on one hand, of his exercising his right to freedom of expression and, on the other, of the gravity of the Supreme State Security Court’s non-observance of international standards for a fair trial.

Front Line believes that the prosecution, detention and failure to release Nizar Ristnawi at the end of his prison term are directly related to his peaceful and legitimate work in defence of human rights.