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Mario Bahjat Shaabo, who was born in a Syrian prison 26 years ago to anti-regime activist parents, was arrested on Tuesday after a trip abroad, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said on Tuesday.
“Maria Bahjat Shaabo was born in jail in 1988, while her mother was serving a four-year sentence for her political activism. On Sunday, Maria was arrested”, the Observatory’s director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Maria was arrested when she returned to Syria from Lebanon, after visiting her mother, who was participating in a medical conference.
“She was arrested on the Syrian side of the border by the intelligence”.
“When she was just a year-and-a-half old, Maria’s father was able to get her out and to care for her in her mother’s absence. Her mother still had another two-and-a-half years to serve. Then shortly after her mother was released, her father was arrested. He spent nearly 10 years in jail, from 1992 to 2002”, Abdel Rahman said.
Maria’s parents are both doctors and were persecuted for allegedly being members of the Communist Labor Party, which is banned in Syria. The party was very active in the 80s and the 90s, and opposed then-President Hafez Assad regime. Current Syrian President Bashar Assad succeeded his father in 2000.
Syria is known for imprisoning peaceful political activists; human rights groups allege that the imprisoned activists have been systematically tortured and abused.
Maria’s father was born in an Alawite family, the same sect as Bashar Assad; her mother hails from a Christian family.
In 2011, a peaceful revolt asking for democratic change morphed into a Sunni-led insurgency against the regime, which responded by launching a massive crackdown on dissenters. Over tens of thousands were imprisoned over political charges; rights groups claim that the detainees are fearful for their lives in prison.