DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syrian police arrested dissident Mahmud Najar on Monday, bringing to at least 14 the number of signatories of a petition for radical democratic change detained in recent months, a human rights watchdog said.
Najar was picked up during a search of his home in the main northern city of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.
"They arrested him and confiscated documents dealing with the Damascus Declaration," the group said, referring to the petition which has united the communist, nationalist, liberal and Kurdish opposition.
A meeting in December of signatories to the declaration drew together 163 activists and established a National Council to push forward its implementation.
Najar is the 14th signatory of the petition to be arrested. Of those at least 12 have been charged. They include former MP Riad Seif.
The Syrian crackdown has drawn strong criticism from the United States.
"The Syrian regime cannot expect to be treated as a respected member of the international community while it engages in such systematic repression of its own citizens," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said earlier this year.
US President George W. Bush has applauded the formation of the Damascus Declaration grouping, saying its members "reflect the desires of the majority of Syrian people to live in freedom, democracy, and peace."
In March, Syria hit back at the US criticism of its human rights record, accusing Washington of hypocrisy after it added it to a blacklist of worst offenders citing the acknowledged abuses of detainees by US personnel in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
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