The Syrian military court sentenced activist Mohammad
Abdel-Mawla Hariri to death for “high treason and intelligence with foreign
parties” on Friday, May 18, 2012. He is currently awaiting his execution in the
Saidnaya prison.
Hariri was arrested on April 16, after discussing the dire
humanitarian and security situation in the Deraa province live on Al-Jazeera
television. Hariri had helped establish live satellite TV broadcast of various
demonstrations and uploaded dozens of videos of rallies in Deraa. He was
tortured from the first day of his arrest and his backbone was broken, but the
authorities decided to continue the questioning and refused to give him proper
medical care.
The SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom strongly
condemns the death sentence against Mohammad Hariri, and considers the charges
null and void. Hariri was arrested without a warrant immediately after his TV
interview. Security forces beat him brutally even though he was unarmed and did
not show the slightest resistance; the torture continued inside the prison and
no medical care was provided to him. SKeyes calls on human rights organizations
to take immediate action and put pressure on Syrian authorities to scrap the
death sentence. Also, SKeyes urges relevant authorities to put an end to the
masquerade of Syrian fake accusations against citizen journalists and human
rights activists, for the truth to finally come to light and for the
international judicial authorities to prosecute the real criminals.