THE INDEPENDENT: Britain has warned Syria that marked progress towards an improved relationship between the two countries could be undermined if Damascus continues to refuse consular access to two Britons held by the security forces here.
Maryam Kallis, 36, was seized by plain-clothes security men on 15 March while walking with one of her four young children on a busy Damascus street. She has been kept incommunicado and at an unknown location ever since and Amnesty International said this week that it believed she could be in danger of torture or other ill-treatment. A British male, who has not been named, was seized in an apparently unconnected episode two days later, and the Syrian authorities have not so far disclosed the reasons for either detention. >>> By Donald Macintyre in Damascus | Thursday, April 2, 2009
