Syrian Elector

Bush bid to isolate Mideast hardliners backfires: analysts

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Bush administration's campaign to isolate Iran and Syria has backfired as the two Middle East hardliners ended up this week sidelining the United States, analysts said.

Supported by Iran and Syria, Hezbollah bolstered recent military gains in a deal with Lebanon's pro-western government while Syria emerged from the shadows with the announcement of indirect talks with Israel, they contend.

For Brookings Institution analyst Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian scholar and dissident, both events flow from a broader plan orchestrated by "puppet master" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader.

"You end up realizing there is a strategy being worked out between Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, and they have actually managed to make quite strong headway in the last few days," Abdulhamid told AFP.

"The Iranians are running the show right now," he added.

Though President George W. Bush's administration may disagree with that, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice late last month mentioned Iran as a threat to Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Iraq and even in Afghanistan.

Few would dispute that Iran's regional influence has risen since 2003 when US-led forces invaded Iraq, overthrew Sunni leader Saddam Hussein and empowered once downtrodden Shiite Muslims close to Iran.

Some analysts disagreed with Abdulhamid and argued that Iran might ultimately find itself isolated over Syria's talks with Israel, but they all insisted that President George W. Bush's policies have backfired.

Urgent Appeal to Save the Freedom of Expression in Syria

It is sad and worrying that the Syrian government and its security branches continue to practice brutal media censorship. Human rights activists and journalists are tried, indicted, and jailed because of articles they have published.

There has recently been alarming changes in the behavior of the Syrian security forces, such as the unprecedented shooting and killing of protesters, in addition to arresting journalists who happen to be covering these protests.

Mr. Karam Ibrahim Yousef, a Syrian journalist and writer, was shot in the head while taking pictures of the national Kurdish celebrations (Nawroz) in the city of Qamishli. Karam's health situation is critical, and he is recurrently losing consciousness. If he survives, he will have to deal with security interrogations, aggravation, and possible imprisonment.

We, the members of 'Journalistes sans press' appeal to international organizations that are committed to defending freedom of expression and freedom of the press, to stand by Syrian journalists and support them in their struggle. We urgently call for assistance in protecting these journalists from the aggressions of Syrian security forces.

Syrian Family Torn Apart by Crackdown

Syrian writer Ali Abdullah is seen during an interview with the Associated Press in Damascus, Syria Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007. Abdullah has been jailed three times in the past 13 years. His son, Omar, is serving a five-year sentence for his involvement in a pro-democracy youth movement. His other son, Mohammed, chose exile in Beirut, having already spent six months in jail. The plight of the Abdullah family, though not unique, highlights human rights abuses in Syria, a country routinely criticized by rights groups for limiting freedom of expression and using harsh measures to silence critics. (AP Photo/Zeina Karam)
By ZEINA KARAM
Associated Press Writer

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syrian writer Ali Abdullah has been jailed three times in the past 13 years. One of his sons is serving a five-year sentence for his involvement in a pro-democracy youth group. The other chose exile, having already spent six months in jail.

Abdullah hopes he will live to see his two sons reunited but has little faith it will happen soon. "Not as long as this regime refuses to accept any kind of criticism," he says.

Human rights groups say Syria's government has long tried to silence its opponents at home, unmoved by consistent criticism from abroad and pressure from the United States.

Now, there are fears the U.S. will ease its condemnation of Syria's rights record as relations between the two countries warm following Syria's participation in last week's Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md.

Abdullah's exiled son, Mohammed, said the Syrian government would likely see less U.S. pressure as "a green light for more human rights abuses and oppression."

Syria can also be “The Land of the Free”

Bashar Elsbihi*

Pursuing immediate democratic reforms in Syria seems to be a task that is left to few courageous and diverse numbers of Syrian ex-patriots who have made it their goal to see that a new democratic government is established in the country.

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Yet today we are witnessing the transformation of the Arab Middle-East from Tyrannical Authoritarianism to what is now termed as An Upgraded Arab Authoritarianism. A condition where current kings and Presidents have adopted as means to counter the efforts of the West in democratizing the region and led by the United States and its European partners and supported by Arab democrats to bring about political reforms in the Arab world.

However, despite the well organized and systematic approach of the regime in Syria to counter any opposition movements inside or outside the borders, few voices have begun to make their mark on the opposition stage and seem to be steadily gaining in popularity. Syrian opposition members from all over the world have gathered this past September in Berlin for the General Conference of the National Salvation Front in Syria. A group lead by former Syrian Vice President Abdulhalim Khaddam and the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood branch in Syria Ali Saderddin Albayanooni. The Conference participants discussed the nature of the oppressive regime in Damascus and ways to bring about a peaceful change in open forum and issued their vision for the Future of a Democratic Syria.

Letter to President Bush on the Annapolis Conference

The Beirut Secretariat for the Damascus Declaration sent a letter to President Georges W. Bush signed by its secretary, former Syrian MP and member of the National Opposition, and one of the prisoners of conscience Mohamad Mamoun El Homsy, demanding that the Annapolis Peace Conference does not become a place of defeat for the project of freedom and democracy and an incentive for the victory of dictatorship on the ambitions, struggle and hopes of the Syrian people and the peoples in the Middle East region. The letter quotes as follows:

Mr. President Georges W. Bush, President of the United States of America

The peoples of the Middle East region have long awaited, after enduring great sorrow, pain and wars whose victims have always been innocent civilians (women, children, the elderly and promising youth), to reach a just, global and secure peace.

Your initiative to hold the Annapolis Peace Conference and your efforts aiming to establish the sovereign, free and sustainable Palestinian state in compliance with the international resolutions are two positive and vital steps for achieving peace in the region.

We consider that the most important factors for the success of any peace initiative should be based on sound and sincere fundaments and principles, apart from the spreading of animosity, hatred, extremism and terrorism among the peoples of the Middle East region.

Syrians find new friend in Beirut

Facebook ban marks latest in series of restrictions that have driven dissidents to Lebanon
MARK MACKINNON
Globe and Mail Update
November 21, 2007 at 7:00 AM EST

BEIRUT — To the outside world, Lebanon's constantly turbulent political scene can make the country seem like a dangerous place to visit. But to Syrians who have fallen out with the regime of President Bashar Assad, the tiny country next door is a democratic paradise.

With Mr. Assad's regime moving in recent months toward even tighter controls on free speech and dissent - this week it banned access to the popular Facebook social-networking website - a growing number of young Syrian dissidents have settled here in Lebanon, the only Arab country where they feel free to express their opinions and continue their political activism.

"It's a safe place for us as Syrians. All the other Arab countries are dictatorships," said 23-year-old Ahed al-Hindi as he sat on the terrace of a Starbucks coffee shop in Beirut's trendy Hamra neighbourhood.

Mr. al-Hindi knows that first-hand. He was arrested in a Damascus Internet café late last year after the café manager filmed him posting what Mr. al-Hindi says were "political comments on the human-rights situation" on a Syrian news website and reported him to the police.

He spent a month in prison for his online comments, and Mr. al-Hindi says the country's mukhabarat secret police continued to follow him after his release, repeatedly asking him to report on the people he met and foreigners he knew. At one point, they confronted him about a Danish woman he was dating, telling him they suspected she was working for Israel's spy agency, the Mossad.

"When I saw my life would be like this - that everything I did would be monitored - I decided to leave," he said.

Life in prison for a phone call?

Taylor Long, NOW Staff

Human rights activist Faeq al-Mir, a longtime opponent of Syrian Presidents Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad, is not eager to join these men in Adra Prison, who in 2005 staged a hunger strike in support of Assad. It was unfair, they said, that their president was taking heat for a recent spate of assassinations in Lebanon. (AFP/LOUAI BESHARA)

Anwar al-Bunni, Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa are just three of the many Syrian activists who have been jailed since early 2005 for their verbal or written support of Lebanon's push for independence and national sovereignty.  In May 2006, they signed a document called the Beirut-Damascus Declaration, calling for the normalization of relations between Syria and Lebanon in the aftermath of the Cedar Revolution and the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanese territory.  For their goodwill, they were sentenced to a harsh five to 10 years in Adra Prison where, according groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, they and other prisoners of conscious have been regularly subjected to beatings. 

Syrian intelligence operatives – the Mukhabarat – recorded a December phone call between Syrian human rights activist Faeq al-Mir, another signatory of the Beirut-Damascus Declaration, and Lebanese parliamentarian Elias Atallah.  In this telephone conversation and in several others made prior to it, Mir offered his condolences to Atallah over the assassination in Lebanon of leading Arab intellectuals Samir Kassir and Georges Hawi, and March 14-aligned Minister of Industry Pierre Gemayel.

The first interrogation session of The Syrian dissident Faek Al Mir

Ahed Al Hendi,Tharwa

The First Criminal Court in Damascus under Judge Mohidin Halak held its first open interrogation session of Syrian dissident, Faek Al Mir on Wednesday, August 29.

A group of supporters, colleagues, a representative of the American Embassy, and Europeans diplomats attended the session.

 

During the session, Al Mir refused accusations of belonging to the Lebanese "March 14" alliance, which is against the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. The defense hearing was postponed until October 7.

Al Mir also denied the Syrian intelligence's claim that a phone call from Al Mir to Elias Attalah, a leading member of the "March 14" group, implies that he has a relation with the Lebanese group.

After Mr. Al Mir finished his speech, the judge postponed the defense session and accused Al Mir of plotting and conspiring with hostile opponents of Syria, attacking the ruling regime, showing open hostility to the government's policy, and frequent communication with "March 14" members.

   

 

Al Mir was arrested in December 2006 after offering his condolences to the family of Lebanese politician, George Hawi, who was assassinated in Beirut in 2005. Hawi was a former leader of the Lebanese Communist party and an ally of Syria during the civil war, but had recently turned against Damascus.

Press release from former member of parliament, Riad Saif: on his ban from travel in spite of needed health treatment

More than two months after tests confirmed that I have an advanced stage of prostate cancer, I submitted to the Syrian authorities a request to travel for treatment outside the country. I have ascertained that the necessary treatment is not available in Syria, while it is available in some developed countries with a high probability of recovery of up to 90 percent. So far, all of my efforts have been doomed to failure: after much procrastination by the Syrian authorities (mokhabrat) I just received a refusal of my request from them, despite the heightened state of the disease, my exacerbated symptoms, and fears that the disease may spread.

I was subjected to a similar experience earlier during my time in prison: tests showed on 2/7/2005 that I had a front artery blockage which required open heart surgery to replace it. After I was released on 01/18/2006, I applied to travel outside the country to conduct the necessary surgical work. My request was also turned down.

Now, with all doors closed with the authorities, I have decided to publicize my case among all individuals and organizations interested in human rights issues in Syria and the world. I hope that they can help me to affirm my right to receive appropriate health treatment abroad, so that I can live the rest of my life naturally.

Riad Saif

Damascus - 13/8/2007

Syrian author clashes with censors, urges liberty

Reuters - 22 hours, 22 minutes ago
By Tom Perry

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Author Khaled Khalifa tested the limits of freedom of expression in Syria with a novel exploring the government's battle against Islamist militants in the 1980s.

His "In Praise of Hatred," published in Beirut, is officially banned in his own country.
"They say the book is not permitted," said the 43-year-old Syrian, smoking a cigarette as he leafed through a copy of the novel, its front cover concealed by newspaper.

Nevertheless, owning a copy of the book, which deals with a highly sensitive chapter in Syria's recent past, is unlikely to land you in trouble with the authorities, Khalifa said.
"Having a book banned is something normal," he said, adding that it is not always clear what will make it past the censors.

"In Praise of Hatred" probably upset them because of its examination of the ideology of Islamist militants who challenged the rule of late President Hafez al-Assad, said Khalifa.

"It is a very sensitive conflict, the price of which we are still paying," he said, speaking at the Damascus cafe where he spends most afternoons writing.
"There has been no national reconciliation or clear discussion to define responsibility for this conflict and who is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people."