Anwar al-Bunni

Anwar al -Bunni (Arabic أنور البني, DMG Anwar al -Bunni, * 1959) is a Syrian lawyer who became known for his work for human rights and a critic of the regime.

Political activity and tracking

Al -Bunni is a prominent advocate of democratic reforms in Syria. Since the 1990s, regularly defending human rights activists and political persecution in proceedings before the Syrian State Security Court. He was the founder of the "Free Political Prisoners Committee ", a board member of the " Syrian Centre for Legal Studies and Research" and worked on a constitution for the period after Bashar al -Assad and his Baath Party.

Al- Bunni family has been subjected to threats for years and monitored by the Syrian security forces. As a disciplinary measure which is controlled by the Baath Party Bar of Damascus repeatedly suspended his license to practice law and threatened with the permanent deprivation. The end of 2005 Unknown pushed him in the car off the road, beat him and left him seriously injured.

Members of al - Bunni family be pursued since the 1970s because of their oppositional activities. According to him, they have spent more than 60 years in prison, of which his brothers and Akram Youssef Benni over thirty years.

Imprisonment

2006 was al -Bunni co-signatories of the Beirut - Damascus Declaration in the 274 Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals calling for a normalization of relations between the two countries. Then he was arrested in May 2006, when he was about to take up a post as Director of the Centre for the development of civil society, that of the " European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights" (EIDHR ) was the European Union co-financed. Described 2006 U.S. President George W. Bush al -Bunni as political prisoners and the Syrian government called in vain for his immediate release.

During the remand al -Bunni was attacked on 31 December 2006 by a criminal inmate who pushed him down several flights of stairs and hit him on the head during the presence of prison guards. On 25 January 2007 his jailers beat violently. They forced him to crawl on all fours, and violent shaved his head.

Conviction and prison

On 24 April 2007 al -Bunni was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for "spreading seditious false information" under Article 286 of the Syrian Penal Code. He had denounced torture and poor prison conditions in Syrian prisons. He also was fined the equivalent of 2000 U.S. $, because the center had possessed no official permission for the development of civil society. The center was closed before it could begin its work. The verdict was seen as a warning to the opposition.

The sentence was in the prison of Adra, about 40 km north of Damascus enforced. It was narrated from harsh prison conditions: So al -Bunni was subject to a ban on writing and had his cell with about 30 other prisoners share, including convicted for homicide. Due to lack of exercise and high humidity in the desert climate suffered al -Bunni from arthritis, so he could not walk normally and stand. Still, he was only allowed to use those hard to reach for him upper bed of a bunk bed.

13 May 2007 al - Bunni wife Ragheda Issa Refki was fired by your posts in the traffic management. In 2008, she took it on their behalf, for her husband by the Irish President Mary McAleese the "Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk ", which had been awarded al -Bunni.

On 17 December 2009 al -Bunni was awarded the Human Rights Award of the German Association of Judges. Representing him took his brother Kamal Albinni accepted the award and was received by Federal President Horst Köhler.

After completion of the sentence is served al -Bunni was released from prison on May 22, 2011.