Syria: UN receives letter of support for Syrian lawyers from international legal professional organisationsIBA press release: 14 March 2012 - Today, the world’s major international organisations representing the legal profession jointly sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, in support of the lawyers of Syria, reportedly being harassed, imprisoned and abused for participating in peaceful dissent or representing Syrian citizens involved in protests.
Interview with Haitham al-Maleh - filmOctober 2011 - The IBA interviews leading Syrian political activist and former judge Haitham al-Maleh, who founded the Syrian Human Rights Association in 2001 and has been arrested several times for speaking out against the government. In 2009, Maleh was convicted of spreading false and malicious information that would ‘affect the morale of the nation’, and spent 18 months in prison. He has since left the country and now travels around the world speaking out against abuses of the al-Assad regime.
Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe: a discussion on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, 2011In October 2011 the IBAHRI hosted a side event at the Human Rights’ Council Universal Periodic Review. The event focused on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in Venezuela, Syria and Zimbabwe, three countries that were reviewed during the current Twelfth Session of the Human Rights Council’s UPR (3-14 October 2011) and where the IBAHRI has conducted missions in 2011.
Roundtable Discussion - Human Rights Lawyers and Defenders in Syria: A Watershed for the Rule of Law, 2011On 28 July 2011, the IBAHRI launched its fact-finding report on Syria, Human Rights Lawyers and Defenders in Syria: a Watershed for the Rule of Law, with a discussion on the main findings and conclusions of the report
Syria fact-finding mission, 2011An IBAHRI delegation travelled to Syria in March 2011, the same week as popular unrest started to spread across the country, to examine the independence of the legal profession and courts in Syria in relation to the treatment of human rights defenders and lawyers.