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Weekly update of human rights violations in the region (3 Nov – 9 Nov 2006)

EGYPT: Threats to freedom of expression

CAIRO, (IRIN) - In Egypt, Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced the sentencing on 31 October of former President Anwar al-Sadat’s nephew, Talaat al-Sadat, after being convicted by a military court of ‘insulting the military and the Republican Guard’.

HRW condemned the conviction of al-Sadat, who is a prominent parliamentarian. “Al-Sadat’s prosecution and sentence [sends] a chilling message to anyone who dares to raise sensitive issues in Egypt. No one should be tried in a military court or any other court for criticising a public institution or a public official,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director of the New York-based rights group.

Meanwhile, local NGO Human Rights Info denounced the arrest of a prominent secularist blogger for his views on Egypt’s religious establishment. Alexandrian blogger Abd el-Karim Suleiman, who was arrested on Monday, is being investigated on five charges, which include ‘incitement to hate Islam’ and ‘spreading malicious rumours that disrupt public security’.

“We are very concerned that he is going to be charged officially with blasphemy – a charge which can carry the death penalty in Egypt,” Human Rights Info spokeswoman Dalia Ziada told IRIN.

IRAQ: Two more journalists killed

BAGHDAD, (IRIN) – Iraqi freelance journalist, Abdul-Majid Ismail Khalil, who was kidnapped on 18 October, was found dead 13 days later in Baghdad’s Jamila neighbourhood, the Paris-based NGO Reporters Without Borders said in a statement on 2 November.

Khalil, who worked for several Iraqi daily newspapers, was abducted by gunmen who surrounded his car, the group said.

On 3 November, Ahmed al-Rasheed, a correspondent for the privately-owned Sharqiya channel, was shot dead in northern Baghdad, residents and the station he worked for said.

JORDAN: Charges dropped against former top royal adviser

AMMAN, (IRIN) - On Sunday, the State Security Court (SCC) dropped charges of “slandering the king and inciting sectarianism” against Adnan Abu Odeh, a former senior adviser to Jordan’s King Abdullah.

He was charged following an interview with the pan-Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeerah in which he said that that the Jordanian government was discriminating against Jordanians of Palestinian origin by preventing them from occupying high and sensitive posts.

Private citizens filed complaints against Abu Odeh at the office of Amman Prosecutor General but the civil office referred the case to the SSC.

However, rights groups, including US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said they believed the government was behind the case and urged the king to amend those laws that allow people to file charges against government critics, further threatening freedom of expression.

“This apparent tactic of initiating and later dropping charges has a chilling effect on regime critics,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division at HRW.

SYRIA: Government jails Islamists

DAMASCUS, (IRIN) - Syria continued its decades-old policy of sentencing Islamists to jail terms through its Supreme State Security Court (SSSC), which operates under the country's 43-year-old emergency laws and which international rights groups criticise as denying defendants basic human rights.

On 5 November, the SSSC sentenced a group of 10 men from the central city of Hama, once the scene of a militant Islamic uprising, to prison terms of between three and six years after they were found guilty of breaking law 306, which forbids inciting sectarian differences. The men had been arrested in August 2004.

Two men from the north-east city of Raqqa, arrested in July 2004, were sentenced to five years each on charges of belonging to a secret organisation that aims to change the social and economic structure of the state, also punishable under law 306.

Razan Zeitouna, a lawyer who runs an information service on human rights in Syria criticised the sentences. "The defendants were sentenced because they are Wahabis [Sunni extremists] and they don't belong to an organisation. The sentences were illegal because the court is illegal," he said.

YEMEN: Al-Dailami says he was tortured by political security

SANAA, (IRIN) - A day after his release on 5 November, rights activist Ali al-Dailami on 6 November said in a press conference that he was severely tortured, physically and psychologically, while in detention.

Al-Dailami said he was beaten on the back of his head, was not allowed to take medication for an abdomen ulcer, was forced to wear ragged clothes and forced to remain barefoot for 22 days.

“Blindfolded, I was forced to sign documents whose content I didn’t know,” al-Dailami said. He added that he was charged with having links with the al-Qae’da terrorist network and for seeking political asylum in Denmark.

He said that investigators threatened to abduct his physically handicapped small child as well as other family members.

Al-Dailami, who is the director of the Yemeni Organisation for Defending Democratic Rights and Freedoms, was arrested on 9 October at Sana’a airport by political security agents.

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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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