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Alert

Kurdish cyber-dissident held in secret for nearly a week; two others still in prison

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has called for the immediate release of arrested human rights activist Ibrahim Zoro, who regularly posts material on foreign-based opposition websites. It noted that two other people were in prison in Syria for posting similar material.

It said the state security service, whose agents arrested Zoro on 5 April 2007 in Damascus, were "as always, acting quite illegally" and his family had not been told why he was picked up or where he was being held. "It is more like a kidnapping than an arrest," the worldwide press freedom organisation said.

Zoro, who belongs to Syria's Kurdish minority, was helping to organise a seminar called "The Philosophy of Lies." He has posted many articles in Arabic on websites such as the blog Tharway ( http://tharwacommunity.typepad.com/qamishly/2006/09/post_22.html#more ) and Mengos ( http://www.mengos.net/articles/06/18-6razan.htm ).

Zoro, 47, has already spent seven years in prison, from 1987 to 1994, for belonging to the Syrian Communist Party. He is a member of the Committee for the Defence of Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights in Syria ( http://www.cdf-sy.org ).

Journalist Muhened Abdulrahman and writer Habib Saleh are also in prison in Syria for posting material online.