(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has urged the foreign ministers of European Union (EU) member countries to raise the issue of the lack of press freedom in Syria with their Syrian counterpart, most likely Foreign Minister Farouk al-Chareh, during the meeting of Euro-Mediterranean foreign ministers in Crete on 26 and 27 May 2003. The organisation is expressly […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has urged the foreign ministers of European Union (EU) member countries to raise the issue of the lack of press freedom in Syria with their Syrian counterpart, most likely Foreign Minister Farouk al-Chareh, during the meeting of Euro-Mediterranean foreign ministers in Crete on 26 and 27 May 2003. The organisation is expressly calling for the immediate release of Ibrahim Hamidi, the Damascus bureau chief of the London-based pan-Arab daily “Al-Hayat”, who has been detained for more than five months.
A Syrian national, Hamidi, aged 33, was arrested on 23 December 2002 and is currently being held in Adra prison in Damascus. On 27 December, the government news agency SANA said the journalist would be tried for “publishing inaccurate news”, which is punishable by one to three years’ imprisonment. In late February, Hamidi’s lawyer, Moustapha Amin, called for his trial’s adjournment in the absence of significant charges against his client.
In a 20 December article, Hamidi reported on preparations by Syrian authorities and the United Nations to receive one million Iraqi refugees in northeastern Syria in the event of a war in Iraq. On 24 December, the newspaper published a denial by a spokesman for Syrian Prime Minister Mohamed Mustapha Miro, stating that neither Syria nor the Red Crescent were setting up hospitals and camps along the Iraqi border.
Syria has confirmed that it will attend the 26 to 27 May meeting in Heraklion, Crete, which will bring together EU foreign ministers and their counterparts from the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean.
