Fresh Charges Against Jailed Dissident

The military criminal court in Damascus launched proceedings against political prisoner Waleed al-Bunni on May 4, reported opposition website Levant News.



Bunni, 46, was accused of spreading false information liable to “weaken national sentiment”, even though he is already behind bars and has two years of his sentence left to serve.



He was sentenced last October, together with 11 other dissidents from the Damascus Declaration group, for holding a meeting which called for greater democracy and freedom in Syria.



Bunni now faces criminal charges for allegedly telling another inmate, who is doing time for car theft, that Iran wields influence over Syria, and also that Damascus is partly responsible for the Lebanese political crisis.



According to the website, Bunni denied the accusations, which he said were trumped up. He said he would never have discussed politics with a common criminal.



Bunni was one of the most prominent opposition figures during the Damascus Spring, a short period of intense political and social debate that followed the death of President Hafez al-Assad in 2000. The year after the Damascus Spring, the authorities crushed reform movements and jailed a opponents. Bunni spent five years in prison after this, but on his release he continued to criticise the Baath party’s monopolisation of power.