Syria Al-Hassani sentenced to 3 years in prison
On 23 June 2010 the court in Damascus has sentenced Syrian lawyer Muhanad al-Hassani to three years in prison for committing vague offenses as ‘the spreading of information that weakens the national morale’ and ‘the spreading of false information abroad’. On behalf of L4L and the Dutch Bar Association, Germ Kemper attended the announcement of the verdict.
Al-Hassani was chairman of a Syrian human rights organization and before his arrest last summer, represented many human rights activists. He monitored affairs at the National Security Council and reported on them. Contrary to normal political prisoners, Al-Hassani has barely any rights in prison. For instance he is not allowed to read books or attend courses. Because you have to pay for almost everything you want in prison, he makes and sells beaded pendants so he can pay for food. He also made pendants for L4L board member Joost Italianer and trial observer Gerrit Nieuwenhuis, as a gift, when both attended the hearings on 10 June 2010.
In the courtroom, his defense filed requests to call witnesses to testify and asked of the prosecution to present its evidence before the court on several occasions. These requests were all denied. At the earlier hearings the observers of L4L had a conversation with the presiding judge, to whom they stressed that the verdict should be substantiated with evidence in a legally appropriate fashion. Considering the verdict it seems to have been a politically motivated trial of which, despite great international pressure, Al-Hassani is the victim. It is possible that the international attention has influenced the sentence, since Al-Hassani received the minimum penalty of three years in prison instead of the maximum of five.
In addition to the prison sentence, the local Bar Association has disbarred Al-Hassani for life. The appeal against this decision is still pending. During their visit to Damascus, Italianer and Kemper have urgently requested the local and national Bar Association to support Al-Hassani instead of taking disciplinary action against him. In conversations with the presiding judge and the attorney-general responsible for supervising the prisons, they also expressed their concern about the prison regime and about Al-Hassani’s not having access to his lawyers. On 7 May 2010 it was announced that Al-Hassani has been awarded with the Martin Ennals Award for Defenders of Human Rights. For more information see earlier reports of trial observations on this website. On 26 July 2010, Catherine Ashton condemned the conviction on behalf of the European Union.