Former Syrian parliamentarian, Mamoun Homsi, was arrested in 2001 and spent five years in prison. He was arrested along with nine other activists in a crackdown on democracy forums that emerged shortly after President Bashar Assad came to power in 2000.

The forums marked a period of ferment dubbed the Damascus Spring, in which Syrians gathered freely for the first time in decades to demand democracy and an end to corruption.

Today Homsi lives in exile in Lebanon with his family. He spends his days drafting petitions and letters to the international community trying to bring his plight and the plight of Syrian reformists in jail to light.

You can hear and read more letters to the presidential candidates from dissidents around the world at theworld.org/election