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Weekly roundup of human rights violations

[Middle East] Map. IRIN
Several human rights violations were reported in the region this week, including the continued detention of human rights activists and members of the political opposition and alleged clampdowns on press freedoms. Pro-democracy activists in Egypt, including the award-winning blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah, who was released from detention on 22 June, continued their campaign for the release of colleagues still held by the authorities. Most of the activists arrested in late May have been let go, with the notable exception of Mohammed al-Sharqawi, who was allegedly tortured by Egyptian police last month. Meanwhile, close to 600 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood remain in state custody, some of whom were arrested on 19 June for holding “illegal meetings”, according to police officials. In Jordan, a group of 623 Bangladeshi labourers working in the kingdom’s Qualified Industrial Zones were removed from companies found guilty of workers’ rights violations on Tuesday. According to the Ministry of Labour, the workers were relocated – under the supervision of the Bangladeshi embassy – to companies found to be in compliance with the law. The transfer represented the second time within the last two weeks that Bangladeshi labourers have been taken away from employers found in breach of the labour law. The moves come within the context of intense labour investigations by the authorities, launched in the wake of an international report highlighting human rights violations in more than 25 of the clothing factories currently operating in the industrial zones. And on Wednesday, the Amman-based Arab Organisation of Human Rights condemned allegations of torture made by Mohammed Shalabi, also known as Abu Sayyaf, at the Swaqa prison. Shalabi is currently awaiting execution for involvement in terrorist acts that took place in the city of Maan in 2002. In May, Shalabi told activists that he had been tortured during his 45 days in solitary confinement. Police sources, however, declined to comment on the issue. In Syria, National Organisation for Human Rights Chairman Ammar Qurabi called for the immediate release of civil society activist Bassam Badrah, arrested on 4 July in the port city of Tartous. On the same day, the London-based Syrian Human Rights Committee (SHRC) expressed its concern over the health of political prisoner Aref Dalila. The 64-year-old economist has suffered deteriorating health conditions since he was imprisoned in 2001 after speaking out against government corruption. On 3 July, rights groups claimed that military intelligence had questioned writer Feras Said, who had earlier denounced the sacking of 17 government employees for signing the so-called “Damascus-Beirut Declaration”, which calls on Syria to improve ties with Lebanon. The SHRC had also reported on 29 June that the office of Hassan Abdel Azim, spokesman for the opposition group known as the Damascus Declaration, had been raided by security forces. Meanwhile, Palestinian-born Swedish journalist Rachid al-Hajeh was released this week after intervention by the Swedish foreign ministry. Al-Hajeh had been arrested at the Damascus airport last month on charges of insulting the Syrian state on Swedish television ten years ago. Finally, 10 activists – including lawyer Anwar al-Bunni and writer Michel Kilo – remain in prison on charges relating to their support for the Damascus-Beirut Declaration. Activists say the health of the prisoners is satisfactory and that they have met with their families and lawyers in the past week. And in Yemen, independent Arabic-language weekly Al-Nahar mourned the death of one of its journalists, Abed al-Usail, who was shot by unidentified assailants on 2 July in the Sana’a governorate. The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate condemned the killing of the 27-year-old reporter and demanded that authorities carry out immediate investigations. According to Al-Nahar, the incident came after al-Usaili wrote an article critical of local government officials. Security sources say investigations are ongoing. On 6 July, opposition weekly Al-Shoura condemned a death threat received by one of its journalists, Ahmed Taha, in the northern Amran governorate. Taha said his life had been threatened by the relatives of a 50-year-old Sheikh accused of raping an eight-year-old girl on 20 February. Supporters of the Sheikh allegedly demanded that Taha stop reporting the details of the incident. The Sisters Forum, a local NGO that has taken on the case of the raped girl, meanwhile, also denounced the death threat, calling on the authorities to provide protection for the journalist. BH/MD/HM/MAJ/SZ/AM

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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