Cedarwatch
Human Rights for Lebanon.
www.Cedar-Watch.com
London 16-5-2003
Subject: Mr. Hanna Youssef Chalita
Cedarwatch Human Rights- Organization is pleading with the Lebanese Government to intervene in the case of the Lebanese citizen Hanna Chalita detained in Syria since noon-time on Saturday the 10th of May after all unofficial efforts to get him released failed. Mr. Hanna has not been referred to any judicial authority.The Organization whose attention was drawn to this cases wishes to make known to the Lebanese officials and to public opinion some of the facts in order that an immediate solution is found and human rights in Lebanon are protected. Hanna Youssef Chalita comes from the town of “Kafar Abida”, Batroun province, north Lebanon. He is married and has two sons: Joseph, 24, and Michael, 19, and is a member of the Phalangist Party-Al Kataeb in Lebanon.
In 1994 he was arrested in his own village and imprisoned in the Ministry of National Defense at Al-Yarzeh for more than 8 years. He was accused, along with others, of involvement in the assassination of the Lebanese MP Toni Suleiman Franjieh, and in the Ehden (north Lebanon) events of 1978. On being released he left for his second home, Australia, and then came back to Lebanon. While on a visit to Syria, he was detained and his whereabouts are unknown until today.
The Organization considers the detention of Hanna Chalita as politically motivated particularly that he was detained before on suspicion of being involved in the Lebanese civil war. It is well known to all that the civil war was a very complicated issue in which many people in higher echelons were involved. It has now become vital that a solution for this internal problem is found for the sake of national reconciliation. This case is therefore larger than an issue of one person. For the sake of justice, our Organization demands his immediate release.
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