DAMASCUS, Syria, June 7 (UPI) -- Syria's military tribunal sentenced a writer to prison for insulting the presidential post as part of a campaign to crack down on political activists.
The president of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, Ammar Kurbi, said in a statement faxed to United Press International in Damascus Wednesday that the military tribunal sentenced Mohammed Ghanem on Tuesday for one year in prison that was reduced to six months.
He said Ghanem was convicted of insulting the president of the republic, undermining the state's dignity and inciting sectarian divisions.
Kurbi noted that ruling was part of the campaign to tighten the noose on political activists which the Syrian authorities started a month ago.
He said "the military intelligence arrested Ghanem last March from his home and took him to several intelligence centers inside and outside Damascus then he was referred to military justice and placed in Adra prison and then in Rikka prison."
In another incident, Kurbi said the authorities arrested Merhi Omran outside the state's security court on Sunday where he attended the trial of his brother, Omar, who is being tried with members of a Muslim extremist Salafi group.
He said Omran was arrested for trying to take a picture of his brother with his cellular phone.
Kurbi also pointed out that the Syrian authorities barred writer Louay Hussein from traveling to Lebanon returning him to Damascus from the Lebanese-Syrian border.
Hussein was heading to Beirut to take part in a talk show on the U.S.-financed Arab-language al-Hurra television.
Kurbi called on the Syrian authorities to remove travel restrictions on all Syrian nationals.
