Detained Syrian engineer Bassel Khartabil is a friend of Hackerspace Singapore

A campaign has been launched to demand the freedom of Syrian software Bassel Khartabil, who was detained without trial by the Syrian government for four months.

The #FreeBassel initiative is also petitioning for immediate information regarding his detention, health, and psychological state.

Bassel is known for his commitment to the open web, volunteering for major internet projects like the Creative Commons, Mozilla Firefox, and Wikipedia.

He had also spent a couple of weeks in Singapore in 2010 to work on a project and hung out frequently at Hackerspace Singapore, which was still in its early days then.

Bassel was detained on 15th March 2012 in the Mazzeh district of Damascus as part of a wave of arrests. Since then, his volunteer work has ceased, affecting the communities that depend on him.

He was supposed to marry his fiancée in April.

Readers who want to sign the petition can do so here.