HAVING SPENT six years in a Syrian prison in the 1980s, Haitham Maleh was arrested again two years ago at the age of 79, for speaking out against human rights violations.
Released earlier this year, Maleh is in Dublin this week for the Front Line Dublin Platform, where he spoke about the unrest currently gripping his country.
“We have 3,000 tanks covering Syria. They attack demonstrators by airplane, by ships from the sea, by everything – it is a kind of war against the people in Syria and it is a very dangerous situation.”
The repercussions of protesting are nothing new to Maleh. His participation in strikes in 1965 cost him his job as a judge.
“They published a private law and pushed me out of my office because I was not with them and I was against the Baath party,” he recalled.
“The Baath party came to power on the military tank, not by vote and, from 1963 to now, they rule the country outside of the law.”
Maleh’s work as a defender of human rights began in earnest in 1978 when he became president of the newly formed Lawyers Social Welfare Association.
“In 1978, the bar lawyers in Damascus had a big conference and we took a very important decision – we asked for democracy, we asked for the freedom for the prisoners.”
After other professions followed their lead, the government attempted to stop dissent by placing the various associations directly under government control.
Without a trial or conviction, Maleh was thrown into prison where he was to spend the next six years.
“You cannot imagine it, it was a very bad situation in jail at that time. People were killed for nothing.
“We lost at that time more than 15,000 killed in jails in different ways. Some of them were killed by torture, some were killed after decision by the field military court or any way – the reason was not important.”
Following international pressure, Maleh was released in 1986 and decided to travel to western countries to seek support for reform in Syria.
“We had more than 50,000 prisoners in different jails.
“I wanted to release these prisoners so I moved country to country to put pressure on the regime,” he explained.
There was initial optimism that change was imminent, he said, when President Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000.
“He spoke about democracy so some movement happened in society and politics and salons for free speech were opened.
“After a year or two, he closed all the salons and ordered to put active persons in jail.”
Maleh said that he had managed to avoid arrest until 2010 because of his high profile internationally.
However, following a security crackdown in 2009, he was arrested and sentenced the following year for “conveying false news within Syria that could debilitate the morale of the nation” and “insulting the president”.
“I did not know where they were taking me because they did not give me their ID, I did not know who they were,” said Maleh, who was 79 at the time.
An international outcry followed and Maleh was released in March on a pardon for certain categories of people, including those over 70 or in bad health.
He has continued to spread the message about violations in Syria.
“Now we have more than 4,000 people killed and around the same number disappeared.
“We have around 100,000 arrested from demonstrations. We have about 20,000 refugees between Jordan and Turkey,” he said.