BBC Monitoring

Text of report in English by Syrian News Agency SANA website

["Sit-in in front of UN headquarters in Damascus" - SANA headline]

Damascus, 19 Aug ( SANA ) - A sit in was staged yesterday evening before headquarters of the UN mission in Damascus in protest against the arrest of a number of the occupied Syrian Golan citizens and journalist Atta Frahat, who was arrested on the 30th of the last month by the occupation authorities.

The protesters, in two statements delivered to the office of the Resident Representative of the United Nations in Damascus, demanded the release of Syrian prisoners and an immediate intervention to save their lives from the slow death and to allow the doctors to visit and treat the prisoners who suffer from chronic diseases.

The statements stressed that the journalist Atta Farhat was detained without being charged while he was exercising his journalistic work despite pressures of the occupation authorities to impede its work as a correspondent of the Syrian television and al-Watan news! paper, calling for an immediate release of Farhat.

The protesters demanded the international organization to put pressure on the occupation authorities to stop violations of the right of Syrian citizens in the occupied Golan.

The sit-in was staged by committee of support of the Syrian prisoners and detainees in prisons of the Israeli occupation, the General Board of Radio and Television and editing staff of the Syrian al-Watan newspaper.

Source: SANA news agency website, Damascus in English 19 Aug 07