 | Great news! Syria releases some wrongfully accused men from prison... |
Authorities on Saturday released 55 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood who had spent up to 20 years in jail, a human rights group said. | Oh. Maybe not such great news. |
The Human Rights Association in Syria (!) issued a statement welcoming the releases and urging the government to free "all political prisoners and detainees and stop detentions outside the law." | "Well, all the bloodthirsty Sunni ones, anyway." |
Those released were 46 Syrians, five Palestinians, two Lebanese, an Iraqi and a Tunisian, said Anwar al-Bunni, a lawyer and human rights activist. Al-Bunni said all were charged with belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, which Syria banned in 1982 after the late President Hafez Assad cracked down on a violent anti-government insurgency blamed on the brotherhood. No further details were available. Syrian officials were unavailable for comment. | "Tehran told us we can say no more." |
The 55 prisoners had spent from three to 20 years in jail and their release followed the Dec. 7 freeing of 112 political prisoners, the largest single amnesty in three years. Since succeeding his late father in 2000, Bashar Assad has released hundreds of political prisoners, but also cracked down on pro-reform and pro-democracy activists, showing that his administration will tolerate dissent only to a certain limit. |