After completing a 30 month sentence in prison, Ali Al-Abdullah packed up his belongings, said his goodbyes, and promptly found himself re-arrested. Abdullah was arrested in December 2007 after he and 163 dissidents organized a meeting in which they called for democratic peaceful change in Syria. Abdullah served his full 2½ year sentence, during which he was subjected to torture. In addition...

A few weeks ago, a Syrian cyber-dissident posted a video message on YouTube addressed to his fellow Syrians living abroad.  In it, Amin (not his real name) asks Syrian expatriates to protest outside Syrian embassies throughout the world on April 17, the Syrian Independence Day, to ‘remind the Syrian authorities that the independence is still incomplete because the Syrian [people] are not...

On April 17th, 2010, Syria celebrates its 64th year of independence. But Syrians are far from free. They live under one of the most tyrannical regimes in the world, alongside such totalitarian countries as Cuba and North Korea. This “Independence” day, Free Syrians around the world will be gathering in front of their embassies (in Paris, Berlin, Bern, Brussels, London, and Washington DC) to...

Following the sentencing of Kareem Arabji on September 13, 2009, the number of openly identified bloggers imprisoned in Syria today approaches nearly a dozen. Arabji was sentenced to three years in prison by the state security court in Damascus. The court’s hall has now witnessed the unjust verdicts of thousands of Syrian political activists, journalists, dissidents and bloggers. Kareem was...