Anas Maarawi is the latest Syrian blogger to have been imprisoned. He was detained on Friday July 1, 2011, in his neighborhood of Kafarsouseh in Damascus, and nothing has been heard of him since.
Anas is a well known blogger in Syria and beyond. Apart from his personal blog, Anas Online, he ran a number of tech-blogs and projects, most prominently, Ardroid, which was the first Arabic-language blog to focus on Google’s Android OS.
His arrest prompted a campaign for his release. A dedicated blog was set-up, as well as a Facebook page and a Twitter hash tag, #FreeAnas. Many Arabic tech-blogs participated in the campaign, starting with his own pet-project, Ardroid [ar]:
You may have been wondering about the disappearance of our friend Anas Maarawi, whom, we’ve become used to his special daily articles on this blog. Anas was detained on Friday 1-7-2011, in Kafarsouseh, Damascus. And we have had no information about him since.
Anas Maarawi is one of the finest of Syria’s younger generation. He’s a blogger, web developer, and an open-source enthusiast. He’s also the founder of Ardroid.
Tech-World, another Arabic tech-blog, wrote about Anas’ arrest [ar]:
I first met Anas Maarawi through his dedicated Android blog, Ardoroid. And I had the honor to meet him at the last ArabNet conference. He was and still is one of the finest Syrians I know. I was very dismayed about the news of his arrest a week ago. I’ve always knew that Anas was far from politics and most of his writings on his personal blog were about technology or general ideas, and only a few simple things about politics. I hope the Syrian authorities release Anas soon. People like him are to be proud of, not detained.
Sourced from GlobalVoicesOnline.org
Written by Yazan Badran
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