Syrian Elector

State Security Services arrested Today former MP Riad Saif

Ahed Al Hendi

State Security services arrested today former MP Riad Saif from his home today (28 January 2008) took him to unknown location. Mr.Saif had attended the trial of his ten collegues of the Damascus Declaration with the other supporters earlier today.

Mr. Saif is suffering form prostate cancer and the Syrian authourities have banned him from traveling to seek treatment. Adequate treatment is unavailable in Syria. Mr. Saif has appealed to human rights groups around the world on 13 August 2007 to help rescind the life-threatening travel ban.

Riad Saif is a former member of Parliament and was arrested 4 April 2002 and sentenced to 5 years on account of his oppositional stance toward the government. He was arrested in spite of his parliamentary immunity.

Sinjar list' – a glimpse into Al Qaeda in Iraq

About 66.3 percent are listed as 'martyrs' and suicide bombers in the list

AFP/ BAGHDAD: By the time he was 19, baby-faced Hamza Abu Hamda Ayache, a Moroccan, had chosen his career. He had decided it would be very short-lived. He would die as a "martyr" in Iraq.

Guided by an Al Qaeda minder, the teenager entered Iraq on November 10, 2006. He left behind at the border about 75 dollars, his passport, his watch - and the telephone number of his parents in Tetuan village in Morocco.

What became of him after that is unknown but the US military says most foreigners slipping across the border end their lives as suicide bombers, or "martyrs". The US military recently made public what it says are profiles of more than 600 Al Qaeda operatives who entered Iraq through Syria between August 2006 and August 2007. The list was seized during operations against the jihadists in northern Iraq in September 2007, it said.

According to the list, posted on the Internet at http://ctc.usma.edu by the Combating Terrorism Centre, a US military research group, most of those - 44.1 percent - slipping across the border after transiting through Syria are Saudi nationals. Other nationalities include Libya with 18.8 percent, Syria 8.2 percent, Yemen 8.1 percent, Algeria 7.2 percent, Morocco 6.1 percent and Tunisia with 5.5 percent. The list was discovered, according to the US military, on a computer during an operation near Sinjar, about 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Baghdad near the Syrian border. Stamped with the logo of Al Qaeda in Iraq, files - such as that of Hamza Abu Hamda Ayache, alias Abu al-Barra - contain biographical details of each individual, country of origin, passport photo and in some cases address and telephone number. Some also mention goods or money left by the recruited jihadist before crossing the border into Iraq - cash, a watch, a mobile phone, an MP3 player, which become "gifts" for Al Qaeda. Aged between 16 and 54, most of them, however, are students. Among the others are professors, nurses, police and plumbers. About 66.3 percent are listed as "martyrs" - suicide bombers. While the "Sinjar list" gives little information on how they were recruited or how they got there, it does reveal that many of them arrived at the same time in Syria and probably travelled in a group. It confirms that Syria remains the principal transit point for entry into Iraq by insurgents. But according to the Combating Terrorism Centre, it is difficult to determine the precise role of Damascus or whether there was any "complicity" by the Syrian authorities.

US commanders said last week that the number of foreigners crossing into Iraq through Syria had dropped to 40 to 50 a month from more than 100 a year ago. The dominant role of Syrian coordinators and smugglers in getting jihadists across the border indicates the network could be run by criminals, says the Combating Terrorism Centre.

The Centre adds that it is "almost inconceivable that Syrian intelligence has not already tried to penetrate these networks." The "Sinjar list", the Centre says, clearly contradicts claims by Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2007 that the organisation only had 200 foreign jihadists in its ranks. The files give no indication of the eventual fate of the more than 600 men who are recorded as having crossed into Iraq. For its side, the American military did not say if it had tested the telephone numbers.

Verhagen's Visit to Syria far from Smooth

DAMASCUS, 26/01/08 - Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen is disgruntled about the presence of Syrian ministers at a meeting of pro-Palestine militant organisations including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad. He feels he has been misinformed. Syrian President Bashar Assad and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem had said to Verhagen that no authorities would participate in the meeting. "That is not true. This is in sharp contradiction to what Assad and Muallem had assured me," complained Verhagen at the end of his four-day visit to the Middle East.

According to Muallem, Syrian ministers were only present at the opening ceremony and that is not the same as actively participating. Verhagen however said he had "addressed" Assad and Muallem about the participation in the "reprehensible anti-Israeli conference."

Verhagen said he also addressed the Syrian President during a meeting of over one hour about the need to combat weapons smuggling to Lebanon and about compliance with human rights. In this connection, he expressed his great concern about the increasing arrests of human rights activists in recent months.

Assad however said he had not received the idea that the Dutch minister wanted to "interfere in Syrian domestic affairs" such as human rights. There was just an exchange of ideas, he told journalists.

The meeting with Assad, like the rest of Verhagen's working visit, was mainly connected with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process re-started in Annapolis last year. According to Verhagen, Syria is indispensable here and must opt for a constructive contribution to this process.

Netherlands Info Services

Syria’s human rights record: bad to worse

Tharwa Exclusive

In a development that suggests that the authorities in Syria are actively seeking to introduce a new mechanism for repressing its opponents, the studio of famous Syrian artist and opposition member, Talal Abu Dan, in Aleppo has recently been ransacked, with intruders destroying paintings, statues and other personal belongings of Mr. Abu Dan. Mr. Abu Dan, married with three children, was born in Aleppo in 1953 and is a former political prisoner who had spent over 10 years in prison for opposing the regime of Hafiz al-Assad.

What makes this development rather suspicious is that it coincided with the vandalism of the car belonging liberal opposition member, Samir Nashar, which had taken place on the same day, as well as the cars belonging to opposition member Mohammad Haj Darwish, and Ibrahim Melki.

If this trend continued, and if it failed to receive sufficient attention and condemnation, it could indeed escalate into something far more dangerous. If the Syrian authorities are willing to resort to criminal activities in order to punish its detractors, there is nothing to prevent it from carrying this measure to an extreme. Indeed, they might have already done so in the case of Kurdish dissident Maashouq al-Khaznawi, who disappeared in early 2005, before his dead body was recovered a short while following his disappearance. The murderers are suspected to have been government agents.

Meanwhile, the current state of human rights in Syria continues to deteriorate as the international community continues to send mixed signals of courtship and censure to the ruling Assad regime, long ranked among the human rights violators in the world.

Syria detains rights activist in continued crackdown

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syrian authorities have detained an activist for his role in a pro-democracy group and participation in one of its meetings last month, a human rights group said Friday .

The detention was the latest in the crackdown against the so-called «Damascus Declaration» group. U.S. President George W. Bush recently criticized Syria's actions and called for the release of the activists .

Marwan al-Ish, a geologist in his late 40s who is a member of the group, was detained while at work on Tuesday, the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said .

The «Damascus Declaration» was formed in 2005 by five small opposition groups and six political figures. The signatories of the declaration said they want to build internal support for peaceful democratic change in Syria .

Authorities have detained several members of the group after it held a meeting on Dec. 1 that brought together opposition groups and activists calling for democratic reform. Al-Ish's arrest raised the number of those currently in detention to 10, the rights group said .

Syrian officials, who usually do not comment on domestic security matters, have not commented on the recent arrests .

During a brief period after taking office in 2000, President Bashar Assad released hundreds of political prisoners _ a move seen at the time as an opening up of Syrian society. But he has subsequently clamped down on pro-democracy activists, showing there are limits to the dissent he is willing to tolerate.

German Foreign Minister Criticized for Courting Syria

Foreign policy disagreements between Germany's left-right coalition heated up this week as Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier found himself on the defensive for meeting with his Syrian counterpart.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) lashed out at Steinmeier for inviting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem to Berlin this week. In his role as foreign minister for the "grand coalition," Steinmeier should have considered the political implications of the invitation, leading CDU leaders said this week.

Steinmeier is a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior partner in the federal coalition led by the conservatives.

Other Western countries such as the United States and France have sought to isolate Syria for worsening the political instability in Lebanon and for its support for radical groups involved in violence against Israel.

Earlier this week, Merkel accused Syria of not doing enough to resolve the political crisis in Lebanon, which has been without a head of state since November due to an impasse between the Western-backed majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition supported by Syria.

Steinmeier feels Syria is a key player both in resolving the Lebanon crisis and bringing peace to the Middle East.

"Syria is a country that can be a spoiler. Therefore, my advice is to keep trying to convince it that a destructive role isn't necessarily in its own interest," Steinmeier said in a speech to the Bertelsmann Foundation think-tank after his Thursday meeting with Foreign Minister al-Moualem.

North Korea-Syria nuke link

Paul Richter,
Washington January 18, 2008 

WESTERN governments have concluded that Syria and North Korea were collaborating on a nuclear weapons program at a mysterious site in the Syrian desert bombed by Israel last year, a senior European diplomat said in a rare comment about it by a high-ranking official.

The diplomat said that after a review of available intelligence, Western governments had reached "some sort of common ground … that there seems to have been co-operation between Syria and North Korea" at the site. The remarks were made on condition of anonymity.

Since the Israeli bombing in September last year, US and allied officials have said little about the attack, the site or the possible existence of a Syrian nuclear weapons program, which could further destabilise the turbulent region.

The European official's remarks represented an acknowledgment of the attack and the conclusion of Western governments that the site was a nuclear installation. Before this, leading Americans, Israelis and Western allies had avoided either issue.

An international consensus that North Korea and Syria have collaborated on nuclear weapons would mark a new setback to US efforts to entice North Korea to scrap its nuclear armament program.

It also could blunt efforts to pursue engagement with Syria, following apparent US overtures before last November's Middle East peace conference in the US.

Syria tightens noose on dissidents

Cairo - In a show of strength by the ruling Baath Party Syria has embarked on a fresh campaign against pro-democracy reformers, dealing a blow to hopes of political change, a Syrian human rights activist said Thursday .

As many as nine human rights activists and pro-democracy writers have been detained since December. Scores others are regularly called in for questioning as part of a big crackdown on dissidents, the Damascus-based human rights activist told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa .

Among the detainees are members of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic Change from across the country, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity .

The declaration, which was signed by Syrian secular political groups in 2005, called for democracy and abolition of emergency law, which has been in force since the Baath Party took power in a coup in 1963 .

The Syrian Human Rights Organization condemned Wednesday the arrest of human rights activist, Muhmmad Haj Darwish, who was summoned on Monday and remains in detention .

There was no official explanation for recent detentions, but they are seen as part of a crackdown targeting members of the Damascus Declaration and other groups .

In December, the authorities arrested 30 activists, who took part in a meeting held by 168 members of the opposition ahead of the International Day for Human Rights .

At the meeting they called for gradual and non-violent democratic change .

Most activists were released a few hours after the arrest. However, eight of them are still in detention, including the head of the Damascus Declaration Council, Fida al-Hurani, an ailing woman doctor, and the communist writer, Akram al-Buni, according to the source .

When President Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000, after his father's death, many had high expectations that the change would herald an era of reform .

For a while, the so-called Damascus spring saw relative openness and a degree of political debate. But this came to a swift end within a few months .

Since then, Syria has seen periodic crackdowns on opposition movements, dashing any hopes for serious political reforms .

© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the EU on the situation of Human Rights Defenders in Syria

Date: 2007-12-31

The EU is deeply concerned about the recent detention of members of a pro-democracy grouping in support of the "Declaration of Damascus", in Syria.

The EU recalls Syria's international commitments, namely the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and more specifically the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Syria has signed and ratified and that clearly states the right to freedom of expression (article 19) and the right to freedom of assembly (article 21).

The EU also fears for their safety and physical integrity and calls upon the Syrian authorities to comply with article 10 from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which states that " 1. All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person".

The EU urges the Syrian authorities to immediately release all of those detained while freely and peacefully expressing their opinions and to ensure that all Human Rights Defenders in Syria are able to operate free of all restrictions and harassment.

Specter's 17th Visit To Syria Again Produces Nothing

Barry Rubin *

Sen. Arlen Specter has fallen into a trap that makes him look silly and damages U.S. interests as well as the cause of peace and democracy in the Middle East. Mr. Specter may have been fooled by real professionals, but given the example of so many others who went before - including his own experience - he should have known better.

After all, this was his 17th visit to Syria since 1984, none of which has produced anything. By this time how could he retain such an innocent attitude toward that country's dictatorship?

The beneficiary here has been Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Before discussing what happened to Mr. Specter, let me point out a few publicly available facts:

* Mr. Assad's regime is a repressive one that has thrown many democracy and human rights' activists into prison and tortured them.

* Syria is the main sponsor of the insurgents in Iraq who have killed many American soldiers and murdered thousands of Iraqi civilians. Given that Mr. Assad's ally in this endeavor is al-Qaida, Syria is the closest thing to a sponsor of Osama bin Laden's group today.

* Damascus is the main backer of anti-Israel terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, directly involved in fomenting terror attacks and sabotaging Arab-Israeli peace. It provided arms to Hezbollah that were used in the 2006 summer war to kill Israelis.