Dr. Dalila was released from prison on August 7, 2008. Soon after his release, he told the BBC that “his views had not changed and that he would continue to voice them.”
Case History
Dr. Aref Dalila, born in 1942, is a writer and former economics professor and Dean of the Faculty of Economics at Damascus University. He was an advocate of political liberalization and wrote for the banned weekly Al-Doumari and has published many books on economics, politics and social history. He was arrested with nine other members of the Civil Society Movement during the Damascus Spring, a period of intense political and social debate in Syriawhich began after the death of President Hafiz al-Asad in June 2000 and continued to some degree until autumn 2001, when most of the activities associated with it were suppressed by the government.