Anwar al-Bunni

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Anwar al-Bunni ( Arabic أنور البني, DMG Anwar al-Bunnī ; * 1959 in Hama ) is a Syrian lawyer and human rights activist .

Political activity and persecution

Al-Bunni is a prominent proponent of democratic reform in Syria. Since the 1990s he has regularly defended human rights activists and politically persecuted persons in proceedings before the Syrian State Security Court. He was the founder of the "Free Political Prisoners Committee", member of the board of the "Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research" and worked on a constitution for the time after Bashar al-Assad and his Ba'ath party .

Al-Bunni's family had been threatened and monitored by Syrian security forces for years. As a disciplinary measure, the Ba'ath Party-controlled Bar Association of Damascus repeatedly suspended his license to practice law and threatened permanent disqualification. At the end of 2005, strangers in the car pushed him off the street, beat him up and left him badly injured.

Members of al-Bunni's family have been persecuted for their opposition since the 1970s. According to him, they spent a total of over 60 years in prison, including his brothers Akram and Youssef Benni for over 30 years.

Imprisonment

In 2006, al-Bunni was a signatory to the Beirut-Damascus Declaration , in which 274 Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals called for the normalization of relations between the two states. He was then arrested in May 2006 when he was about to take up a post as director of the Center for Civil Society Development, which was co-financed by the European Union's European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) . In 2006, US President George W. Bush labeled al-Bunni a political prisoner and called on the Syrian government to be released immediately.

While in custody , he was subjected to severe assault and humiliation several times .

Sentencing and the execution of sentences

On April 24, 2007, al-Bunni was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for "disseminating false information that is dangerous to the state" under Article 286 of the Syrian Criminal Code. He had denounced torture and poor detention conditions in Syrian prisons. He was also fined the equivalent of US $ 2,000 for not having an official permit from the Center for Civil Society Development. The center was closed before it could start operating. The verdict was seen as a warning to the opposition.

The sentence was being carried out in Adra prison , some 40 km north of Damascus . There were reports of miserable prison conditions: for example, al-Bunni was prohibited from writing and had to share his cell with around 30 other prisoners, including those convicted of homicides. Due to the lack of exercise and high humidity in the desert climate, al-Bunni suffered from arthritis , so that he could no longer walk or stand normally. Nevertheless, he was only allowed to use the upper bunk of a bunk bed, which was difficult to reach.

On May 13, 2007, al-Bunni's wife, Ragheda Issa Refki, was dismissed from her post in the traffic administration. In 2008 she accepted on behalf of her husband from the Irish President Mary McAleese the "Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk", which had been presented to al-Bunni.

On December 17, 2009, al-Bunni was awarded the Human Rights Prize of the German Association of Judges . His brother Kamal Albinni accepted the award on his behalf and was received by Federal President Horst Köhler .

After serving his sentence in full, al-Bunni was released from prison on May 22, 2011.

Escape to Germany and activist against war criminals

In 2014, Anwar al-Bunni and his wife managed to escape to Germany, where they found accommodation in a Berlin reception center . There he met his torturer, Anwar Raslan , a colonel in the Syrian secret services who, as head of a commando, had al-Bunni taken to a prison in 2006, where he was tortured and almost killed. Afterwards, al-Bunni began looking for witnesses to human rights violations in Syria on Facebook and through other contacts .

After his escape, Anwar R. turned to the German police because he felt he was being followed and threatened by Syrian and Russian secret services . When he testified, he said frankly that he was an important man in Syria's torture system. Because of these acts and because of his involuntary "confession", he and another accused have been tried at the Koblenz Higher Regional Court since April 23, 2020 . This is the first time that functionaries of the Assad government will have to answer for state torture worldwide .

There is great interest in the process in the Arab world. The Federal Constitutional Court took this into account in an urgent motion on August 21, 2020 not only to have the proceedings translated simultaneously for the defendants and their lawyers, but also to give the press representatives "equal and real access" to the court proceedings.

Al-Bunni founded the Syrian Center for Law and Research in Berlin . Here he and the other activists pursue murderers and torturers from Syria. They collect information (names, photos, ranks and instructions) so that the perpetrators can be held responsible.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BBC -Meldung of 24 April 2007: Syria jails human rights activist
  2. ↑ a b 2008 Anwar Al-Bunni winner of the Third Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk
  3. ↑ a b c Signatories of the Beirut-Damascus Declaration sentenced to prison terms ( memento of August 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). Information from Amnesty International's Syria Coordination Group.
  4. ↑ End of a spring . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 2005, p. 127 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Call for the Release of Jailed Syrian Human Rights Lawyer ( Memento November 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Human Rights First, February 14, 2007.
  6. ^ Mohieddine Isso: Al-Bunni family presented with Irish human rights award , May 23, 2008
  7. ↑ Gabriela Keller: The Republic of Fear . In: Spiegel Online - Politik , April 3, 2007
  8. ↑ Resolution of the European Parliament of June 15, 2006 on Syria (P6_TA (2006) 0279) , recitals D and E
  9. ^ President's Statement on the Government of Syria, December 13, 2006.
  10. ^ Fischer Weltalmanach : Keyword Syria - Trials against dissidents
  11. ↑ Annual report of the European Union on the human rights situation 2007 , p. 82. See also: 2007/2274 (INI) .
  12. ^ Hassan M. Fattah: Syria jails lawyer over reports of torture , New York Times , April 24, 2007
  13. ↑ Shawn Pogatchnik: Jailed Syrian rights activist wins award from Ireland . In: USA Today , May 1, 2008
  14. ^ A letter from the prisoners of conscience in Central Damascus Prison, Adra , Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, June 28, 2009.
  15. ↑ sacking of Anwar al-Bunni's wife from her work ( Memento of 30 August 2008 at the Internet Archive ). Syrian Human Rights Committee press release June 9, 2007.
  16. ↑ À la recherche d'Anwar Raslan, tortionnaire syria. April 8, 2020, accessed on July 16, 2020 (French).
  17. ↑ Syrian lawyer gives evidence in German trial against 'monster' who jailed him. Retrieved July 16, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Moritz Baumstieger, Lena Kampf, Ronen Steinke: The process. Syrian war criminals on trial in Germany. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (Book Two), 18./19. April 2020.
  19. ↑ Lena Kampf: Reports from the darkness of the torture prisons. Süddeutsche Zeitung , August 20, 2020 (accessed August 21, 2020)
  20. ↑ Hannah El-Hitami, Dietmar Pieper: The hunt for torturers has begun. In: Spiegel Politik, April 17, 2020 ( Spiegel + )
personal data
SURNAME al-Bunni, Anwar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian lawyer and human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Hama