Syrian security forces
arrested two sons of prominent opposition figure Fayez Sara on Thursday,
hauling them off to an unknown location without showing a warrant, he told AFP.
"Security forces
stormed the apartment where the brothers live at 6 a.m. (0300 GMT). They broke
down the door looking for weapons and took Bassam, 37, and Wissam, 26,"
Sara told AFP by telephone.
According to the activist,
"the security forces did not present an arrest warrant or disclose the
charges." His sons who suffer from health problems were "not allowed
to take their medication with them."
The opposition figure was
among more than 100 journalists who founded an "Association of Syrian
Journalists" in February.
The association voiced
solidarity with the "revolutionary movement" and accused the
"biased" official Union of Journalists in Syria of condoning the
regime's deadly crackdown on dissent.
Sara was also among
intellectuals invited to take part in a "national dialogue" at the outbreak
of Syria's protest movement in March 2011 but was arrested two months later.
The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights on Thursday also expressed concern for the health of anti-regime
figure Mahmoud Issa, a banned communist party leader detained since April 4.
Issa, a member of Syria's
Alawite minority like President Bashar al-Assad and native of the Mediterranean
coastal town of Banias, was previously arrested in connection with the
uprising.
More than 100,000 people
have been detained during the almost 14-month uprising, according to the
Britain-based Observatory which puts the number still behind bars at more than
25,000.
A peace plan brokered by
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, accepted by the regime in Damascus, calls for
the release of detainees. Human rights groups have repeatedly condemned cases
of torture in Syrian jails.
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