The Syrian Human Rights Committee Media Spokesman has commented on the arrest of the Director of the Iraqi channel Al-Fayha in Damascus, Haifa al-Husseini, on 1/3/2009, and the calls made by the advisor of the Iraqi National security Muwafaq al-Rubae’i to reveal the reason for her arrest and release her immediately, “because media and individual freedom should be available for all journalists and citizens. Syrian authorities should immediately release Miss Haifa al-Husseini as her arrest is arbitrary and illegal, and if she has committed any wrong or illegality in her work then she should be tried at a court or removed, in line with the constitution and normal laws.”
The spokesman continued, saying, “the requests made by Muwafaq al-Rubae’i are loaded and full of extreme contradictions, as whilst he calls upon the Syrian Authorities to release an Iraqi citizen in Syria, he is aware that 35 Syrian citizens who have been living in Iraq for the last 25 years are being detained simply because they are Syrian, in addition to 40 others who have been killed by militias loyal to Mr. al-Rubae’i due to their nationality. They were killed in cold blood in their homes or workplaces or on the street, all for the same reason.”
The SHRC spokesman also mentioned that, “it is not possible that the blood of migrant Syrians living in Iraq is of no value, and their freedom without weight, after the Syrian regime has abandoned its citizens and in the time in which Mr. Muwafaq al-Rubae’i is personally intervening for the case of an Iraqi journalist arrested in Syria.”
The spokesman concluded by “placing direct blame on al-Rubae’i for the pains and vast violations which have targeted Syrian migrants living in Iraq, and calling upon him personally to reveal the fates of the Syrian detainees in the prisons of Buka, Abu Ghraib, al-Dakhilia and others, to release them immediately, and to provide an explanation for the death of the 40 killed by the militias and to punish those responsible at a fair and open court and to compensate their families.”

Syrian Human Rights Committee
11/3/2009