Kareem Arabji is a 31 year old business consultant who helps manage the online youth forum www.akhawia.net. Kareem was also the supervisor of Al Mabar Al Hur, a section within akhawia.net dedicated to free ideas; he wrote numerous articles using a pseudonym critical of corruption and dictatorship in Syria.

On June 7, 2007 Arabji was arrested by Syrian security forces. Arabji has been held incommunicado ever since at the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence in Damascus. He has been charged with, "broadcasting false or exaggerated news which would affect the morale of the country..” On September 13, 2009 Arabji was sentenced by a Syrian court to three years in prison.

Syria remains one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East. Those who voice dissent are regularly intimidated, arrested, tortured and imprisoned. Amnesty International has reported that Arabji has likely been tortured during his detention. In September 2009 the Jordanian Business Magazine reported that Syria blocks at least "160 Web sites, including Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, and the popular online-telephone service, Skype.." Syrian cyberdissidents such as Arabji face regular harassment from security forces.

Article 38 of the Syrian constitution allows "the right to freely express one's opinions by spoken word, in writing or in any other medium." This is actually little more than hollow rhetoric. The same article also states that expression must be in a "manner that safeguards the soundness of the domestic and nationalist structure and strengthens the socialist system." This clause effectively guts any true form of freedom of expression in Syria.

Tyrannical regimes such as Syria fight tirelessly to quash freedom of speech and thought. Though such repression can work for a time, the forward march of human history records that few forces are as powerful as a liberated soul. Syrian bloggers seem to grasp this instinctively and we hope the West understands as well.

Cyberdissidents.org strongly condemns Syria's ongoing assault on human liberty. We will do everything in our power to support Kareem Arabji and his fellow democratic online dissidents.

Kareem’s thoughts as published in Akhawia:

“The press is a very important mechanism to struggle against the corruption, there  should not be any restrictions or obstacles to it .  It is necessary to rely on freedom of the press [in Syria]…”

“Since I was a kid in school we were always taught that the Muslim Brotherhood is a criminal gang, and I agree.  And now we proudly consider Hamas, which is a Muslim Brotherhood proxy, as an ally!!!?“

“Everyone in our country says that the other is a traitor.  I have never heard an American Republican accuse and American Democrat of being a traitor.  I have never have never heard an Israeli from the Likud party accuse someone from the histadrut of being a traitor.”  

“The cannibal has more mercy than those who are ruling our country.”

Arabji was arrested on June 7th 2007 and has been held incommunicado ever since at the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence in Damascus. He has been charged with, "broadcasting false or exaggerated news which would affect the morale of the country” probably connected to the online youth forum www.akhawia.net. Amnesty International has publicly stated that he has most likely been tortured during his period of incommunicado detention by the Palestine Branch, an institution particularly notorious for its torture. He was scheduled to appear in front of the Supreme State Security Court (SSS) on 8 June and, as of March 3rd, is still in prison.