Opposition statement

Farid sends us this item from Washington:

Washington DC, May 1, 2007/AFP/ -- BEIRUT - Six leading opposition figures jailed in Syria warned on Tuesday that the “repressive climate” in their country was worsening and called for the release of all political prisoners.
“Our situation as prisoners of conscience is part ... of the crisis of public freedoms and human rights in Syria, which started with the state of emergency imposed 44 years ago,” they said in a joint letter from Adra prison near Damascus.
“The crisis has reached its climax today, with increased repression and suppression of freedoms,” they wrote in the letter published in Lebanon’s leading An-Nahar newspaper.
The signatories are Anwar Bunni, Michel Kilo, Kamal Labwani, Mahmud Issa, Faeq al-Mir and Aref Dalila. The newspaper did not disclose how the letter was smuggled out of the Syrian prison.