Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union on the continued detention of Mr Michel Kilo and Mr Mahmoud Issa
- On: 19.12.2008
The European Union deplores the decision by the Syrian Court of Cassation to refuse the early release of Mr Michel Kilo and Mr Mahmoud Issa.
Without wishing to pronounce on the legality of the procedure followed, the European Union calls for the immediate release of Mr Kilo and Mr Issa, sentenced to imprisonment merely for having called on the Syrian and Lebanese governments to normalise their relations and define their borders by signing the Damascus-Beirut, Beirut-Damascus declaration.
In the year in which the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is celebrated, the European Union calls on the Syrian authorities to fulfil their international commitments, in particular those under that Declaration and under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Syria signed and ratified in 1969.
- Updated: 19.12.2008
