(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 26 May 2000 RSF press release: Nizar Nayyuf still in prison Syrian journalist Nizar Nayyuf is still being held at Mezze prison, Damascus, contrary to what Reporters Sans Frontières reported in a press release issued on 27 April 2000. Several sources had announced the journalist’s release on 22 or […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 26 May 2000 RSF press release:
Nizar Nayyuf still in prison
Syrian journalist Nizar Nayyuf is still being held at Mezze prison, Damascus, contrary to what Reporters Sans Frontières reported in a press release issued on 27 April 2000.
Several sources had announced the journalist’s release on 22 or 23 April: the Committee for the Defence of Democratic Freedoms and Human Rights (CDF) in Syria, the Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, quoting official sources, and the Committee for Democracy in Syria (CDS), an umbrella organisation grouping several banned opposition parties.
However, Nizar Nayyuf’s brother told Amnesty International that he had visited the journalist in prison twice since the date of his alleged release. He added that Nayyuf was in poor health: he could only walk with a stick and was suffering from an eye infection and back pain.
According to a document written by Nayyuf on 29 April, he had been moved three days earlier to an unknown place where he was asked to sign a statement undertaking to give up all the prizes he had been awarded, including the 1998 Reporters Sans Frontières – Fondation de France prize. When he refused, he was apparently taken back to Mezze prison.
RSF apologises to Nizar Nayyuf and his family for wrongly reporting his release, and is still particularly worried about his state of health.
