(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: Nizar Nayouf Abducted by Intelligence Agents Nizar Nayouf, the prominent Syrian journalist and democracy activist who was freed from prison last month, was abducted from a Damascus street on Wednesday, 20 June, apparently by Syrian intelligence agents. Sources told the World Association of Newspapers that six […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release:
Nizar Nayouf Abducted by Intelligence Agents
Nizar Nayouf, the prominent Syrian journalist and democracy activist who was freed from prison last month, was abducted from a Damascus street on Wednesday, 20 June, apparently by Syrian intelligence agents.
Sources told the World Association of Newspapers that six armed men, apparently Syrian intelligence agents, snatched Mr Nayouf at 6 p.m. (3 p.m. GMT) today as he went for medical treatment at a clinic in the al Jisr al-Abiad quarter of Damascus. They placed a hood over his head and took him to an unknown location.
The abduction occurred on the day Mr Nayouf was to release information at a press conference about alleged crimes committed by Syrian intelligence agents inside and outside of Syria .
Mr Nayouf was freed from prison on 6 May but remained under house arrest. A condition of his house arrest is that he not engage in political or human rights activity, but he has refused to acknowledge this condition.
He suffers from leukaemia and other forms of cancer and is partially paralysed from repeated beatings from prison authorities. He was in Damascus for medical treatment.
Mr Nayouf, the 2000 laureate of the WAN Golden Pen of Freedom and the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1992 for disseminating “false” information. He was Editor in Chief of Sawt al-Democratiyya (Democracy’s Vote) and Secretary-General of the Committee for the Defence of Democratic Freedom.
WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom worldwide. It represents 17,000 newspapers; its membership includes 67 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 93 countries, 17 news agencies and eight regional and worldwide press groups.
For further information, contact Larry Kilman at WAN, 25, rue d’Astorg, 75008 Paris, France, tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00, fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48, email: lkilman@wan.asso.fr, Internet: http://www.wan-press.org
