Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Syria 'Tortures Activists to Access Their Facebook Pages'

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Syria has been accused of torturing activists to force them to reveal their passwords to Facebook websites that have sustained the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Protest organisers have set up the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page and have promised that "demonstrations will continue every day".

However, amateur video footage showing the violent suppression of protests has dwindled to a trickle amid signs that the regime could be gaining the upper hand after more than seven weeks of anti-government protests.

"The lines of communication have almost been completely severed," one activist said.

"Some of our people who have been taken have been broken under the most severe torture, and they have revealed passwords and names."

Activists admitted that many of the once-secure networks they used on sites such as Facebook and Twitter had been compromised following a campaign of mass detentions in which more than 8,000 protesters have been arrested. » | Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent | Monday, May 09, 2011