Global Arab Network | Syria frees dissident Michel Kilo

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Syria frees dissident Michel Kilo

A Syrian writer and critic of the country's authorities has been freed after spending three years in jail for calling on Damascus to recognise the independence of Lebanon, two human rights groups have said.

"Michel Kilo was freed evening," Abdel Karim Rihawi, the president of the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights, said.

Ammar Qorabi, head of the National Organisation of Human Rights in Syria, confirmed that Kilo had been freed.

Kilo was due to be released from prison last Friday "but his release was delayed until Tuesday," Qorabi said.

"He will continue his role in civil society in Syria," he said.

Kilo, who was arrested in May 2006 along with seven other opposition activists, was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of "weakening national sentiment" and "undermining the image of the state."

Prior to his arrest, he had signed the Beirut-Damascus Declaration, a petition urging Syrian recognition of Lebanon's independence.

The document, which was signed by 274 Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals, also called for the the two neighbours to forge diplomatic relations.

Anwar al-Bunni, another signatory to the declaration, had received a five-year sentence on the same charge as Kilo, and is still in jail.

Kilo's arrest was widely criticised by Lebanese and Syrian political groups opposed to Damascus' policy on Lebanon.

The US and the European Union had also called on the Syrian government to free Kilo.

Syria and Lebanon formally established diplomatic relations in October, more than 60 years since they each won independence from France.

That came nearly three-and-a-half years after Syrian troops and security officials pulled out of Lebanon after a 29-year presence, in the wake of public anger over the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister. (AFP, Reuters, Huffington Post)

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