Mahmoud Mer’i, Ghaleb ‘Amer, Dr Safwan Tayfour and Nidal Darwish were freed on 17 July, on payment of 1,000 Syrian Lira (US$20) bail. This follows their withdrawing their signatures from the “Beirut-Damascus Declaration”, a document signed by hundreds of Syrian and Lebanese nationals, calling upon their two governments to normalise relations by exchanging ambassadors and defining their shared borders. The remaining six detainees (Anwar al-Bunni (m), Michel Kilo (m), Khalil Hussein (m), Mahmoud ‘Issa (m), Suleyman Shummar (m), Muhammad Mahfouz (m) continue to be held incommunicado and are at risk of torture.
