Haitham al-Malih

Haitham Maleh (right) at a conference in Tunis

Haitham al-Malih ( Arabic هيثم المالح, DMG Hayṯam al-Māliḥ , born August 15, 1931 in Damascus ) is a Syrian democracy activist , lawyer and former judge. Haitham Chalil al-Malih was born in 1931 in Suq Sarudscha in Damascus as the son of a person in charge of the Hejaz Railway . He attended elementary school near the telegraph memorial in the city center. His secondary school was the Ibn Khaldun school. Subsequently, al-Malih studied law at the University of Damascus . After completing his studies, he headed the Institute for Arabic-Islamic Studies. He worked as a lawyer from 1957, but then preferred to work in the judiciary. Al-Malih worked as a judge in Masyaf and Darʿā , but moved back to Damascus in mid-1960. There he worked as a deputy public prosecutor and examining magistrate at the second chamber of the Palace of Justice. Al-Malih later became a justice of the peace.

Al-Malih was arrested several times under the rule of Adib al-Shishakli . He has long been a critic of the current Syrian Ba'ath government under President Bashar al-Assad and has been arrested as a dissident by the authorities on various events since the 1960s . He was imprisoned from 1980 to 1986 for demanding reforms and constitutional changes. In 2009 he was again sentenced to several years in prison, but pardoned in 2011.

Al-Malih was a signatory to the Damascus Declaration and became a leading member of the opposition Syrian National Council from 2011 in the wake of the Syrian civil war and later from 2012 in the National Coalition for Revolutionary and Opposition Forces .

Web links

• Haitham Maleh Foundation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Khaled Yacoub Oweis: Syria jails elderly government critic for 3 years. Reuters, July 4, 2010, accessed July 17, 2011 . 
2. ↑ هيثم المالح. Al Jazeera , March 10, 2011, accessed March 10, 2011 .