Alaaeddin Al Rashi, a 37-year-old Syrian human rights activist and publisher, was arrested on 20 March by agents of the Saudi Intelligence services as he was travelling to Saudi Arabia on a business trip.

Hanadi Zahlout was arrested on 4 August as she was meeting friends in a restaurant in Jaramana, a small city near Damascus.

Alkarama is concerned to learn that Syrian human rights lawyer Mustafa Osso currently risks disciplinary action by the Syrian Bar Association's Al Hasaka Branch. The disciplinary action would be for critical statements he made in the media about the violent response of the authorities to protests happening in the country.

On 21 June 2011 Mr Georges Sabra was arrested for the third time in three years by armed agents from the security services. Leader of the main opposition party in Syria, he has suffered persecution in recent years, including arrest and enforced disappearance, the first time on 24 March 2010 and a second time on 10 April 2011. At present, a month after his second release on 10 May 2011, he was again disappeared by the Syrian authorities.

His family has not been able to obtain any information on his whereabouts as of 21 June.

Detained for over a year at Dammam prison, Murad Al Mukhlif, a 36-years-old school director and father to two children, has suffered severe acts of torture. His family, who was not allowed to visit him in prison for a year, recently learned that the severe beatings he had received on his back led to the paralysis of both his legs.

28 June 2011, 3:30 a.m. Salem Mohamed's home in the Abu Slim district of Tripoli is quiet when suddenly twenty security agents violently break down the front door. They are all heavily armed, some are wearing hoods others are in civilian clothing. The 31-year-old academic, father to two children, is immediately handcuffed and taken by force in a military car to an unknown destination.

Alkarama today submitted the cases of 7 journalists, including 2 women, who have suffered persecution because of their activities reporting on, and participating in, protests in Yemen to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression. These journalists have been subjected to various type of harassment including being enforcedly disappeared, detained arbitrarily, arrested, and received death threats.