Three Internet-users sentenced to prison terms of two to four years

The State Security Court in Damascus on 25 July sentenced three of four Syrian Internet-users to jail terms ranging from two to four years. Haytham Quteish was sentenced to four years while his brother, the actor Mohammed Quteish, was sentenced to three years and journalist Yahia Al-Aws to two years. The Syrian Human Rights Association said in a statement that the three had been found guilty of spreading false information on the Internet, obtaining information in favour of a foreign state that should have been kept secret for the safety of the state, and unauthorised writings that expose Syria and Syrians to the risk of aggressive actions that damage its ties with a foreign state. The Internet-users were arrested between September and October 2002. Sentence against Massud Hamid, 29, arrested on 24 July 2003, was postponed until 10 October 2004. The journalism student and member of Syria's Kurdish minority is officially accused of belonging to an "illegal organisation". He was arrested a month after posting on the Internet photos of a peaceful Kurdish demonstration. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 july 2004 Plea to President Bashar al-Assad to pardon five jailed Internet users  Reporters Without Borders called today on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to release five imprisoned cyber-dissidents, including Massud Hamid (picture), a 29-year-old Kurdish journalism student due to appear before the supreme state security court on 25 July accused of "belonging to an illegal organisation." Hamid was arrested on 24 July last year at Damascus University and has since been held in solitary confinement at nearby Adra prison. The court is a military body whose rulings cannot be appealed. Reporters Without Borders urged Assad to pardon the five, some of whom have been held for nearly two years, in the wake of the pardon he recently granted to about 100 Kurds, including several political prisoners. Hamid was picked up a month after photos of a peaceful Kurdish demonstration in front of UNICEF's offices in Damascus in June last year were posted on the website : www.amude.com. He has recently been allowed visits from his lawyer and relatives once every two months. He has been in solitary confinement for a year, is reportedly in bad psychological shape and according to Amnesty International has been ill-treated. The German-based website www.amude.com deals mainly with Kurdish culture and identity and says it gets up to 5,000 visitors a day. Another cyber-dissident, Abdel Rahman Shaguri, 31, was given a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence on 20 June by the supreme state security court for "publishing lies" online that "harm the image and national security" of Syria. He was arrested by intelligence officials on 23 February last year for e-mailing a copy of a newsletter from the banned website www.thisissyria.net. He is in Saidnaya prison, near Damascus, where he has reportedly been tortured. The Damascus-based Syrian Human Rights Association says three other cyber-dissidents may appear at the 25 July court hearing - brothers Mohammed and Haytham Quteish, and Yahia Al-Aws, all accused of "sending false news abroad" to a UAE-based news website. Aws, 31, was reportedly arrested on 12 September last year and is in prison in Saidnaya.