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.