Today the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, presented the 2008 Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk to Anwar al-Bunni of Syria. The Award was collected on his behalf by his wife Ragheda Issa Refki.
A human rights lawyer and founding member of the Syrian Human Rights Association, Anwar al-Bunni, was sentenced on 24 April 2007 by a Damascus Court to five-year imprisonment under Article 286 of the Syrian Penal Code, for disseminating “false information harmful to the state” and membership of an illegal political organisation
