Syria Frees Leading Dissident Najati Tayyara

Prominent opposition figure and rights activist Najati Tayyara, arrested last May for having criticized President Bashar al-Assad's regime, was released on Tuesday, a rights group said.

"The Syrian authorities have just released him and his lawyer has just spoken to him on the telephone," said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Assad last week decreed a general amnesty for crimes committed during unrest in Syria over the past 10 months, in the third such move since the unrest broke out, the state SANA news agency said.

The Observatory said in September that Tayyara, 66, had been "severely beaten" in prison in the central city of Homs. He was arrested for criticizing the regime's harsh treatment of demonstrators in media interviews, it said.

He has had a Facebook page calling for his release, a move supported by Amnesty International.