Published : 28-03-2019
Palestinian writer Ali Sa’id Shehabi has been secretly held in Syria government jails for the seventh year running.
Shehabi, an English instructor at a UNRWA school, was kidnapped on December 17, 2012. Prior to his abduction, Shehabi had been taking shelter in Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees.
Frequent calls by international NGOs and activists to unearth Shehabi’s fate have gone unheeded by the Syrian government.
The instructor was arrested for the first time in 1974 and jailed for nine months in the Mezzeh military prison in Syria. In 1982 he was sentenced to another ten years over charges of affiliations with Syria’s anti-government Communist Labor Party. In 2006, he received a seven-month prison-term on account of his attempts to form a new political party and over allegations of signing the Beirut-Damascus declaration, a statement signed in 2006 by Lebanese and Syrian activists who called on the Syrian government to correct its relationship with Lebanon and to respect Lebanon's independence and sovereignty. The declaration also called for an end to political killings in Lebanon.
AGPS documented the incarceration of over 1,700 Palestinian refugees in Syrian regime lock-ups, among them children, women, academics, university students, and sick civilians.
Palestinian writer Ali Sa’id Shehabi has been secretly held in Syria government jails for the seventh year running.
Shehabi, an English instructor at a UNRWA school, was kidnapped on December 17, 2012. Prior to his abduction, Shehabi had been taking shelter in Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees.
Frequent calls by international NGOs and activists to unearth Shehabi’s fate have gone unheeded by the Syrian government.
The instructor was arrested for the first time in 1974 and jailed for nine months in the Mezzeh military prison in Syria. In 1982 he was sentenced to another ten years over charges of affiliations with Syria’s anti-government Communist Labor Party. In 2006, he received a seven-month prison-term on account of his attempts to form a new political party and over allegations of signing the Beirut-Damascus declaration, a statement signed in 2006 by Lebanese and Syrian activists who called on the Syrian government to correct its relationship with Lebanon and to respect Lebanon's independence and sovereignty. The declaration also called for an end to political killings in Lebanon.
AGPS documented the incarceration of over 1,700 Palestinian refugees in Syrian regime lock-ups, among them children, women, academics, university students, and sick civilians.
