“The bloggers [Ali Fakhry and Khodor
Salameh] were subjected to violations of their legal and [other] rights prior
to their release, which followed pressure from protests organized by supporters
and civil society activists in front of the Damascus road police station in
Sodeco,” according to a Skeyes statement.
Fakhry and Salameh were arrested
Friday night after painting phrases in support of the Syrian uprising in the
Beshara Khoury area in Beirut
Fakhry told The Daily Star “we wrote
‘the revolution will continue’ and the Lebanese Army stopped us and sent us to
the military police who put us in a dirty cell and gave us just one phone
call.”
The two have organized a protest
alongside Semaan Khawam, who was charged in February with spray-painting
political graffiti on public property, to take place next Tuesday.
SKeyes said members of the Internal
Security Forces committed rights violations against members of the media at the
protest outside the police station in Sodeco Saturday.
“The protest organized by supporters
[of Fakhry and Khodor] and activists saw battering and beating by the Internal
Security Forces of activists and journalists which led to the injury of
photographers Khaled Ayyad from the Nedaa newspaper and Hussein Baydoun of
Al-Nashra website.”
Skeyes warned against such
violations and held Lebanese authorities, both political and judicial,
responsible for the “receding of general and individual freedoms in Lebanon
“Authorities in http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Apr-25/171361-media-watchdog-slams-rights-violations.ashx
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