Syria (1987-90): Does Syria have security agents in Greece monitoring activities of Syrians living there, particularly Syrians suspected of being supporters of fundamentalist Muslim groups, e.g. Muslim Brotherhood
| Publisher | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada |
| Author | Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board, Canada |
| Publication Date | 1 July 1990 |
| Citation / Document Symbol | SYR6236 |
| Cite as | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Syria (1987-90): Does Syria have security agents in Greece monitoring activities of Syrians living there, particularly Syrians suspected of being supporters of fundamentalist Muslim groups, e.g. Muslim Brotherhood, 1 July 1990, SYR6236, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6aaee40.html [accessed 29 May 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
No information specifically concerning the Syrian internal security agency in Greece is currently available to the IRBDC. Enclosed, however, please find an excerpt from Syria: A Country Study on the Syrian internal security agency. Further, the following information pertains to alleged activities of this agency.
Amnesty International in 1983 reported that there were allegations that Syrian security forces were responsible for the killing of several Syrian government opponents abroad (Report from Amnesty International to the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, November 1983, p. 34). In 1986 the Federal Republic of Germany issued an international search warrant for Haïtham Saïd, Syrian military information officer, following the discovery of a bomb in the bureau of an Arab-German friendship society in West Berlin (Association de défense des droits de l'homme et des libertés démocratiques dans le monde arabe, Les droits de l'homme dans le monde arabe. Annual Report 1987, p. 151).
According to a spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese community, Mr. Badri Hamadi (telephone conversation of January 1990), the Syrian intelligence agency known as "Al Mouhabarat" is omnipresent in Syria and wields virtually unlimited power. Also according to Mr. Hamadi, the Syrian intelligence agency controls the army and is active abroad. This information could not be corroborated by sources currently available to the Documentation Centre of the IRB.
Attachments:
Foreign Area Studies, Syria: A Country Study. (Washington, D.C.: The American University, 1979), pp. 220-221.
Amnesty International, Report from Amnesty International to the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic. (London: Amnesty International Publications Ltd., November 1983), p. 34.
Association de défense des droits de l'homme et des libertés démocratiques dans le monde arabe, Les droits de l'homme dans le monde arabe. Rapport annuel 1987. (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1988), p. 151.
