Majdoleen Hassan: two weeks hunger strike to release activist husband

Writing by Faris Al Rifai; Translation by Yusra Ahmed

 (Zaman Al Wasl)- 13 days passed since Syrian activist and a Lawyer, Majdoleen Hassan, begun her open hunger strike, demanding the release of her husband and opposition activist Omar al-Shaar from security chambers.

Hassan, a member of the Syrian Civil Coalition, expressed her objection to arresting her husband and Jajee’a Nofal, human rights activist, beside activist Maria Shaabo at the Syrian-Lebanese borders on 31st of October 2014.

She declared on her Facebook page that she continue her hunger strike until releasing her husband unconditionally. She called relatives of detainees and abductees to do every possible peaceful method to release them.

In her statement, she also called the local and international human rights organizations to work effectively on detainees’ cases to reach to a state of closing the political detention file, especially after disclosing of the humiliating and inhuman conditions in prisons.

Hassan told Zaman al-Wasl that her husband was arrested on 31st of October at the Syrian-Lebanese borders, in his way back from a workshop with the Human right organization. “It is his second detention, as he was detained for almost 8 months on 11th of November 2013, and was charged of terrorism at the Anti-terrorism court.”

She explained that detaining her husband was a part of the systematic plan to empty the country of its educated activists.

Hassan intends to carry on her hunger strike, as a legal peaceful mean, despite she convinced it would not be enough in such unfair world, and regime would not free her husband, but her hunger strike could draw attention to the detainees’ crisis in Syria.

The ‘hunger strike’ is to remind people with the peaceful forms of struggle, and to return them to the revolution’s scene, she added.

The regime tried to pressurize the activist as she was wiped out the registration in the Lawyers’ Council after her first demonstration, and she was banned of traveling, besides calling her many time for interrogation at security branches.