New York, June 23, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information today called on the Syrian government to produce immediate evidence showing that unjustly imprisoned blogger Tal al-Mallohi is alive and well. The demand follows several recent news reports saying that al-Mallohi died in a Syrian prison a month ago.
A Gay Girl in Damascus was a personal blog, said to be written by a young woman named Amina Arraf, that appeared to give an everyday record of being a lesbian in modern-day Syria. Following the events of the Arab Spring, as the political situation in Syria grew less stable, the blog attracted more readers and media coverage. Its compelling descriptions of Syrian life gave many a way to connect emotionally to a distant crisis. On June 6, the author's "cousin" wrote that the blogger had been seized by the security services.
New York, February
15, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the sentencing of
blogger Tal al-Mallohi on Monday to five years in prison on state security
charges and calls on Syrian authorities to release her immediately. Al-Mallohi, 20, was detained in 2009 and held in extrajudicial detention for close to a
year, according to news reports and local press freedom groups.
