Articles for

Ghaith Abdul Ahad, a correspondent of the British newspaper the Guardian and Andrei Netto of the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo were arrested on Monday 7 March 2011 near Sabratah, a town on the Libyan coast. Three other journalists from the BBC, arrested on the same day, were tortured for 21 hours by Gadaffi's security forces, before being released.

Haitham Al-Maleh, a prominent Syrian human rights defender and laureate of the 2010 Alkarama Award, was released from Damascus Central Prison (Adra prison) today and finally reunited with his family. Al-Maleh was released following a presidential amnesty freeing certain prisoners, including those over the age of 70.

Recent video footage from Libya shows evidence that Colonel Gaddafi's regime is using deadly force against Libyan citizens. According to accounts, violent measures were used against citizens prior to the recent popular uprising.

Ibrahim Ahmad Hamid, a 53-year-old Palestinian refugee, was arrested on 8 August 2008 in the United States for his alleged involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, only to be forcibly returned to Lebanon on 25 May 2010 after 22 months in Henderson County Correctional Center in Kentucky, USA. The Lebanese authorities are currently trying him on charges of murder and "forming a terrorist group," for which he was tortured in order to extract false confessions. Alkarama fears that he will be heavily sentenced based on concocted confessions.

As a measure to put pressure on the Syrian authorities to release information regarding his arrest and detention, Alkarama sent Mohamed Al-Braidy's case to the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.

Mohammed Saad Eddin Al-Braidy is a farmer from Jamlah in the Naheyet Al-Shajara area of Daraa in southern Syria.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had stated in September 2008 that the detention of Mr Al Shatter and those detained with him, was arbitrary and that they should be released.