Pak Daily Times
Syria has freed 30 political prisoners, mostly members of Islamist groups, and 90 more will be released in the coming days, lawyer and prominent human rights activist Anwar Bunni told AFP Saturday. Many of the freed prisoners belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Hizb al-Tahrir (Liberation party), were members of Iraq’s former ruling Baath party or had completed their sentences or were in ill health, he said. The most prominent prisoner being released is Fares Murad, a member of the Arab communist organization who has been imprisoned for 29 years and whose health has declined. There was no information on one of his colleagues, Imad Sheiha, who was jailed with him in 1975. More than 750 political prisoners have been freed during two presidential amnesties declared by President Bashar al-Assad on the anniversaries of his coming to power in June 2000.
| Somehow I don't find springing Islamists to be a genuine step toward human rights reform... |
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