Cairo October 3, 2012

ANHRI condemns the arrest of the Syrian human rights lawyer “Khaleel Ma’atoq” by Asad’s security forces without direct and clear reasons.

The Syrian regime’ security forces had arrested him on Tuesday October 2, 2012, while he was heading to his office from home. The reasons of the arrest still unknown yet.

“Ma’atoq” is the executive manager of the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Researches in Damascus. It is worthy to mention that he is not counted in the favor of the opposition nor the supporters. “Ma’atoq” enjoys, of Kurdish origins, a huge respect on the local and Arab levels for his efforts to defend the prisoners of opinion in Syria for decades. “Ma’atoq” has just came back to Syria after a medical trip to France, which is one of many medical trips for him recently due to suffer from a complicated disease in his lungs stoped 60% of it from working.

ANHRI said that “the arrest of Ma’atoq represents a huge shift in the regime suppressive practices which avoided the arrest of the significant human rights figures that do not directly oppose the regime, in particularly, who belongs to the ethnic minorities, especially the Kurdish minority”.

ANHRI calls for the immediate release of “Ma’atoq”, especially, due to his critical health condition, which put his life endanger in the arrest condition. ANHRI calls the regional and international organizations to strongly press their governments to call for the release of “Ma’atoq” and all the prisoners of opinion and conscience in Syria.

ANHRI said “we should remind of what we have prepared many times that the world society bears a big part of the responsibility of the Syrian regime crimes due to the inaction. Such crimes are escalating daily against the people. We are certain that the people will win at the end and will oust the Syrian suppressive regime. We are certain that these crimes will be a collar of shame to all the languid and collusive people who committed crimes against the victims and their blood due to silence to preserve their narrow political interest in addition to suspected economic interests”.