What Is Akram Raslan’s status?

Akram Raslan was CRNI’s 2013 winner of the Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning. Past award winners have hailed from Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, Palestine, Iran, and India, including last year’s winner, Ali Ferzat, also from Syria.
Since our most recent posting there have been reports that Akram Raslan is alive, others claiming otherwise. While we hope it is the former, his current status remains unclear. CRNI is working every day with a number of sources to verify that he is alive and relatively well.
To re-cap the history of Mr. Raslan’s troubles with the Syrian regime of Bashir al-Assad, in late 2012 Mr. Raslan was abducted from the offices of his newspaper and “disappeared” into the Syrian dictator’s prisons. In May of 2013, we learned that Akram would be part of a show trial where he would be charged with various crimes including sedition and disrespecting the head of state. CRNI responded with a letter to the Syrian Ambassador in Washington, D.C., asking for his intervention in having Akram released. We next learned that Akram’s trial would be postponed, which we took as a positive sign until we heard that instead of being released additional charges of being a spy for the CIA and for Israel had been leveled against him.
Next our sources informed us that on July 26, 2013 Akram Raslan and other prisoners of conscience including journalists, artists, singers and other intellectuals were secretly put on trial with no witnesses, no defense attorneys, no appeal, and no hope for justice. From unconfirmed and sketchy reports we also learned all were sentenced to life imprisonment. Another rash of unconfirmed reports later said that young 28-year-old Akram Raslan, and possibly others, were then secretly executed.
Within the quagmire that has overtaken Syria and its people, it’s difficult to tell reliable information from deliberate disinformation. Through the lives of people like Akram Raslan, we are taught that it’s not only the soldier in the heat of battle who must be called upon to exhibit courage.
CRNI will continue to update this ongoing story as new information becomes available and verifiable