Anwar al-Bunni

In May 2006 he was detained by security forces after signing the Beirut-Damascus Declaration calling for democratic reform. A year later he was given a five-year sentence for "spreading false or exaggerated news that could weaken national morale, affiliating with an unlicensed political association with an international nature, discrediting state institutions and contacting a foreign country", according to his lawyer. He was also fined the equivalent of US$2,000 for operating the Center for Legal Research and Studies without government permission. Analysts described the sentence as more severe than those previously given for similar offenses, making it a "stark warning to the Syrian opposition". and U.S. President George W. Bush named al-Bunni in a speech as a political prisoner unfairly jailed by Syria. After his release from prison in 2011, he continued to defend detainees. ==2012–present: exile in Germany ==

Al-Bunni escaped from Syria in 2012, shortly after the Houla massacre, and later sought political asylum in Germany. In Germany, al-Bunni participated in the universal jurisdiction war crimes trial of Anwar Raslan and Eyad al-Gharib. In June 2020, he provided testimony as a witness on "the horrors and the bureaucratic structures of Assad's jails and torture chambers", based on his five years as a prisoner in Syria and from his legal experience in representing victims. Al-Bunni worked with prosecutors to help find witnesses willing to testify in the trial. Al-Bunni is more broadly interested in promoting transitional justice. == Awards ==

In 2008, al-Bunni received the Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk. The following year he was awarded the Human Rights Award by the German Association of Judges., in 2018 he received the Franco-German Prize for 'Human Rights and the Rule of Law'. Anwar features in Time Magazine's "The 100 Most Influential People of 2022". == References ==