DAMASCUS, Syria — Anwar Bunni’s wife had seen this moment often in her nightmares: the secret police emerging from the shadows, forcing her activist husband into a waiting car.

After all these years, it felt like a spell had been broken.

“You’re waiting for the beast to arrive, and finally it comes,” Raghida Issa said. “I felt relief.”

But their trouble had just begun. Mr. Bunni, a vocal critic of the Syrian regime, was held for nearly a year before a military judge sentenced him last month to five years in prison. In a verdict that drew immediate condemnation from Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department, he was convicted of, among other things, spreading false or exaggerated news that could weaken national morale.

Like others in his circle of well-known intellectuals seeking democratic reform, the prominent human rights lawyer seemed to be protected by his fame. But what was once permissible no longer is tolerated. Observers believe the verdict in his case was a signal: The political landscape in Syria has changed once again. The boundaries of what can be said in public have shifted during the last year, and the regime now has a narrower view of what is permissible.

“They play this game with the red lines — it’s like Tom and Jerry,” one opposition leader said. “They select some people to show they are still strong.”

The dissidents’ families pay the price, Ms. Issa said, but she wanted no pity. She knew what she was getting into when she married Mr. Bunni almost 30 years ago. Her sister had married his brother, and they were both active in politics and had been arrested and imprisoned previously. Between them, the two families have spent 60 years in prison.

This, however, was Mr. Bunni’s first time in prison. He has not been allowed to have a radio or books, his wife said. “He never regrets what he has done, but sometimes he’s frustrated,” Ms. Issa said. “Sometimes I think, ‘What have we contributed to society to make it worth this high price?”‘

Although her family offers solace, Ms. Issa still feels acutely the absence of her husband.

They used to share a cup of coffee in the mornings, talking and surfing the Web for news together, she said. Now there is an empty chair across from hers, and the rituals of everyday life lie shattered.

There is also the loneliness woven with fear: being shunned by colleagues, friends staying away, a silent phone.

“Because of the political situation that we were in — even my sister was arrested — you feel this social isolation,” Ms. Issa, who works as an engineer for the Ministry of Transportation, said.

She didn’t think it strange that the government she works for is the government that imprisoned her husband. “This is Syria,” she said, and shrugged.