Media group urges Syria to drop journalists' case

A press freedom group urged Syria to drop criminal defamation charges against two journalists it said could face three years in jail over their reports into alleged corruption at a state fertilizer company.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Bassam Ali and Suhaila Ismail investigated misuse of funds at the Public Company for Fertilizers in Syria. The group said that after their reports were published in 2005 and 2006, the minister of industry fired the company director, who then filed a lawsuit against the journalists for defamation and "resisting the socialist system". (Reuters)