DAMASCUS - Syrian authorities on Wednesday detained four more people as part of a crackdown on activists who signed a petition calling for Syrian recognition of LebanonÂ’s independence, a human rights group said. A total of seven people, including prominent writer and journalist Michel Kilo, have been detained since Sunday in Syria as part of the campaign against signatories of last weekÂ’s Beirut-Damascus Declaration.The petition, signed by 274 Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals and published in Beirut last Thursday, called for Syrian recognition of LebanonÂ’s independence and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two neighbors.
Ammar al-Qorabi, president of the Human Rights Association in Syria, said the security services arrested on Wednesday activist and doctor Safwan Tayfur in the northern city of Hama and translator Mahmud Issa in the city of Homs, north of Damascus.