26 June 2001
NAYOUF ABDUCTED FOR 24 HOURS; OTHER JOURNALIST REMAINS IN JAIL
Journalist Nizar Nayouf, recently released after nine years in prison, was abducted on a Damascus street on 20 June, report the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), Reporters sans frontières (RSF) and the International Press Institute (IPI). He was released twenty-four hours later, says RSF. The abduction occurred on the day that Nayouf was to release information about alleged crimes committed by Syrian intelligence agents inside and outside of Syria, reports WAN. While Syrian authorities denied involvement in the incident, Nayouf told RSF that agents from the intelligence services abducted him to tried to buy his silence about human rights in Syria. "They offered me a car, a house and lots of money in exchange for my silence about what I knew concerning human rights violations in Syria," said Nayouf. After he refused their bargain, they beat him and threatened to kill his brother. The journalist added that he believes that the intelligence services, not the president, masterminded the abduction.
Nayouf, winner of several press freedom awards including the 2001 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, was freed from prison on 6 May, but remains under house arrest. A condition of his house arrest is that he not engage in political or human rights activity, but he has refused to acknowledge this condition, says WAN. The organisation notes that Nayouf, who suffers from leukaemia and other forms of cancer and is partially paralysed from repeated beatings from prison authorities, was in Damascus for medical treatment at the time of the abduction. [Updates IFEX "Communique" #10-18, #10-17, #10-10, #10-5, #9-23 and #9-12.]">http://communique.ifex.org/articles.cfm?category=1%20Regional%20News&volume=10&issue_no=18%26amp;lng=english#3107">IFEX "Communique" #10-18, #10-17, #10-10, #10-5, #9-23 and #9-12.]
Although several journalists have been released since Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father in July 2000, the Syrian president remains on RSF's list of the world's thirty predators of press freedom. RSF notes that 'Adel Isma'il, a journalist with the Lebanese daily "Al Raïa" who was sentenced in 1996 to ten years in prison for alleged involvement with the banned Democratic Baath Party, remains in prison. The Syrian president has also authorised the publication of four private newspapers, but RSF says the new publications hardly differ from the governmental press, well-known for its propaganda. The organisation adds that many Syrian journalists live in exile, the last issue of the satirical newspaper "Addomari" was censored, and the main newspapers in Lebanon (where Syrian troops are stationed), are regularly censored.
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