DAMASCUS: Syria has jailed four more dissidents, one for 12 years, matching the heaviest sentence handed down since President Bashar Syria's regime has long regarded the Muslim Brotherhood as its most serious threat and membership of the group has been outlawed on pain of death since 1980, although in recent years the penalty has always been commuted to prison terms.
Qorabi said two other dissidents - Ahmad Sheikho and Faisal Ballani - were jailed for five years, while Kurdish activist Ziad Ismail was jailed for three. The three were convicted of "belonging to organizations seeking to change the economic and social basis of the regime," he said.
| For the better, it should be noted. |
He said all the judgments came from the state security court - a tribunal of exception under the state of emergency in force ever since Assad's Baath party seized power in 1963.
| That's a long state of emergency. Sucks to live in a dictatorship, huh. |
Last month, Kamal Labwani was jailed for 12 years in what was then the longest sentence leveled against an opposition activist since Assad took power. He was convicted of having "contacts with a foreign country aimed at encouraging it to attack Syria," after being arrested on his return to Damascus from talks with White House officials in November 2005.
| I'm guessing he wasn't talking to Nancy Pelosi. |
Washington said the earlier jail terms were "evidence of the Syrian regime's continued contempt for human rights." "We call on President Assad to unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in May.