Mr Muhanad Alhasani, a human rights lawyer and the president of the Syrian Human Rights Organisation (SHRO), was arrested on 28 July 2009 for reporting on cases treated before the State Security Court (SCC). Front Line is highly concerned for the well being of Muhanad Alhasani and calls for his immediate release.

Further Information

On 23 July 2009, Muhanad Alhasani received a call from the Public Intelligence Directorate (PID), “Al-Mukhabrat Al-Amma” in which he was asked to attend a meeting on 26 July with a high level security officer.

Following that meeting, over the next two days, Muhanad Alhasani was repeatedly summoned and attended meetings at the PID. On the last of these meetings, on 28 July at 7:00 pm, he was arrested and detained incommunicado

Previously, on the morning of 19 July 2009, Muhanad Alhasani was one of many lawyers attending a hearing of ten defendants before the State Security Court (SSC). At 1:00 pm, immediately after the end of the hearing, Muhanad Alhasani was walking towards the court cafeteria building when an employee of the SSC forcefully took his notebook, cut out the papers related to the hearing and ripped other pages.

Muhanad Alhasani immediately reported the incident to the head of the SSC, in the presence of other members of the court. The head of the SSC summoned the employee and reprimanded him for “harassing a lawyer on duty and taking his private papers”. The employee said that he was acting on orders from the head attorney of the SSC.

The head attorney of the SSC, Habib Najma, who was present, confirmed giving the order, explaining that Muhanad Alhasani tended to abuse the confidentiality of the SSC. Habib Najma read some of the notes from the confiscated papers and commented that this information would soon be disseminated on the internet.

Muhanad Alhasani argued that the court sessions are open and that he was attending as a human rights observer and had not violated any law or regulations. The head judge of the court asserted the open nature of the court while the head attorney insisted that the publication of the materials would abuse the confidentiality of the SSC and threatened that he would use the notes to prosecute Muhanad Alhasani.

The representative of the Ministry of Justice, who was also present, reprimanded Muhanad Alhasani and asked him not to make an issue of the incident. Muhanad agreed to do that on the condition that his papers would be returned to him and that he was not further harassed. However, the notes were not returned.

Since the establishment of the SHRO in 2004, Muhanad Alhasani has received threats that he would be judicially prosecuted and imprisoned for running an unauthorised organisation. Similar to many other human rights organisations in Syria, the SHRO was refused permission to register.

Front Line believes that the detention of Muhanad Alhasani is directly connected to his work as a human rights lawyer. Front Line is deeply concerned for the physical and psychological integrity of Muhanad Alhasani.