34 Facts About Nizar Nayyouf

Nizar Nayyouf is a Syrian journalist, human rights activist, and dissident.

Nizar Nayyouf has criticized the Syrian government for human rights abuses, for which he was arrested and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in 1991, most of which he spent in Mezzeh prison outside Damascus.

Nizar Nayyouf subsequently moved to France, where he remains politically active and continues to call for democracy in Syria.

Nizar Nayyouf has won numerous awards for his work including the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2000, and the Golden Pen of Freedom Award in 2001.

Nizar Nayyouf has been named a World Press Freedom Hero by the International Press Institute.

Nizar Nayyouf was educated at the University of Damascus, where he earned degrees in political economy and economic development.

Nizar Nayyouf co-founded the Committee for the Defence of Democratic Freedom, of which he is the former secretary-general.

Nizar Nayyouf was accused of making false statements and accepting money from abroad.

International observers at Nizar Nayyouf's trial stated that it did not meet international standards of judicial fairness.

Nizar Nayyouf was sentenced on 17 March 1992 to 10 years of hard labour.

Nizar Nayyouf was sentenced for his membership in the CDF, which was banned under the Syrian regime, as well as "disseminating false information".

The first ten months of Nizar Nayyouf's sentence were served in Sednaya Prison outside Damascus.

In 1993, Nizar Nayyouf went on a thirteen-day hunger strike at Palmyra in order to protest the torture of prisoners.

At Mezzeh prison, Nizar Nayyouf was subjected to various forms of torture including electrocution, beatings, and being hung upside down from his feet for two or three hours at a time.

Nizar Nayyouf was reportedly urinated on for refusing to Hafez al-Assad, then-President of Syria.

Nizar Nayyouf was subjected to the "German chair", a rack-like device designed to stretch the spines of prisoners.

Nizar Nayyouf was the target of attempted assassination in prison on three occasions, by a fight with another inmate and by arsenic poisoning as well as poisoning with other chemicals, which he survived in part because certain prison guards were sympathetic to him.

The Syrian ambassador to the United States Walid Muallem told Human Rights Watch that Nizar Nayyouf was only suffering from a slipped disc and that his health condition had improved.

In 1999, after international pressure, Nizar Nayyouf was treated for Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Nizar Nayyouf was repeatedly told he would be released if he would sign a document recanting his criticism of the Syrian government, but refused.

In prison, Nizar Nayyouf continued to write and receive letters as well as send papers out by bribing prison guards.

In 2000, Nizar Nayyouf was recognized by the International Press Institute as a World Press Freedom Hero.

Nizar Nayyouf received the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2001, while he was still jailed and in very poor health.

International outcry ensued in response to the incident, which had occurred just as Nizar Nayyouf was planning to release information detailing Syrian human rights abuses, but the government denied involvement.

However, Nizar Nayyouf was granted a full release and his travel ban was lifted, hours before President Bashar al-Assad was due to visit Paris.

Nizar Nayyouf moved to France and then the UK, as he applied for political asylum, while he sought medical treatment for the injuries he suffered from torture during his confinement, which left him partially paralysed.

Nizar Nayyouf joined the Syrian Democratic Coalition to advocate for democratic reforms.

On 26 May 2002, Nizar Nayyouf missed a planned appearance at the 55th World Freedom Congress in Bruges, Belgium, where he was to be formally presented with the Golden Pen of Freedom, prompting widespread concern for his safety.

Nizar Nayyouf was driven for several hours before being left in a forest more than 100 kilometres away.

Nizar Nayyouf was found by a passerby in a car and taken to the hospital at Anderlecht, where police found him.

Nizar Nayyouf accused the Syrian government of being behind the abduction, and stated that his abductors had offered to allow him to return to Syria if he would withdraw his claims of human rights abuses by the Assad government.

In 2004, Nizar Nayyouf gave an interview to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf in which he claimed that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein hid his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in Syria before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

Nizar Nayyouf identified sites near the cities of al-Baida, Tell Sinan, and Sjinsjar as alleged holding sites for Iraqi WMDs.

At the time of the burglary, Nizar Nayyouf had been meeting with an official of the Ministry of the Interior about supplying those documents to the French government, a request which he refused.