[nadine]

Iets waar hier natuurlijk niets in onze media over geschreven wordt:
A prominent businessman in Aleppo has characterized Syria as “a society in custody.” Emergency rule imposed in 1963 remains in effect, and the authorities continue to harass and imprison human rights defenders and other non-violent critics of government policies. The government strictly limits freedom of expression, association, and assembly, and treats ethnic minority Kurds as second-class citizens. Women face legal as well as societal discrimination and have little means for redress when they become victims of rape or domestic violence.

In a positive development, the government released more than one hundred long-time political prisoners in 2004, bringing to more than seven hundred the number of such prisoners freed by President Bashar al-Asad since he came to power in June 2000. Thousands of political prisoners, however, reportedly still languish in Syria’s prisons.
...

The government has never acknowledged responsibility for an estimated 17,000 persons—Lebanese citizens and stateless Palestinians—who were “disappeared” in Lebanon in the early 1990s and are known or believed to be imprisoned in Syria.


Meer op:
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/01/13/syria9812.htm