Syria laughs in West's face

“Once again the Syrian government and visiting foreign politicians are talking together, but why do they ignore us, the ordinary Syrian people? Iraq, Lebanon and the peace process are important issues, but are Syrians themselves less important?”

Unreported comments like these by everyday Syrians have been made all day long in Damascus following the visit of British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, to talks with President Bashar al-Assad (left). In statements to the press today, Miliband confirmed that the pressing questions of Syria’s role as a regional intermediary on issues such as the Israeli-Arab peace process, the face-off with Iraq-Iran and the thorny issue of relations between Syria and Lebanon had been the main focus of official discussions.

FDPOC has reacted to the visit by saying that “At the very same time that Mr Milliband was fielding questions in one location in Damascus, the Syrians were sentencing Mustapha al-Dalati, a pro-democracy advocate at another.”

“In a society where strict control of all institutions is routine, the fact that the Syrian government allowed the embarrassment of a human rights sentence to be passed under Mr Milliband’s very nose while he stood in front of the cameras, has been seen by many as a true reflection of the powerful position the al-Assad regime now considers itself to be in with respect to the international community.

“The Syrians are well aware that the world now considers them to be central in any plans to stabilise the region and are capitalising on the fact that the West has jumped from a situation of totally isolating Syria to catapulting it into the diplomatic limelight. The regime is now glorying in what it considers to be a powerful international negotiating role. From the evidence of the way they continue to act with impunity despite strong words of Western condemnation, this strong position will continue to allow them to act with total licence in crushing democratic opposition within the country.

“Despite the fact that it is no more than just a few weeks since Miliband (left) publicly called on Syria to “allow its citizens to practise the right to freedom of expression and association without fear of sanction”, the British Foreign Secretary has been put in a difficult diplomatic position through Syria’s calculated discourtesy today. Calculated, in fact, to the extent that the democracy activist sentenced during Miliband’s visit belonged to the very group for whom the Minister had issued a strong demand for release. This is a weak and unfortunate position for British diplomacy to be in. While, nonetheless, it is true to say that European politicians are forthright in their condemnations of Syria’s appalling human rights track record, their appetite for pressing the regime on the locking up of opponents, human rights activists and intellectuals seems to routinely vanish in their face-to-face meetings with the regime.

“The al-Assad government now feels strong, very strong,” FDPOC’s correspondent in Damascus today stated. “And people here feel that that strength is being practised on them, and they are afraid. International visitors, whether Sarkozy or Miliband, have succeeded in talking with the Syrian regime, but people here on the ground feel they are failing to talk to them and their very real concerns.”

FDPOC has recently written to the EU Vice President, the UN’s Commissioner for Human Rights and others in order to bring what it calls “the pressing need for human rights to be at the very centre of the international community’s conversations with Syria”

UN & EU asked to act on Syrian human rights

FDPOC has asked the Vice President of the EU, Jacques Barrot (left), to intervene directly on what it calls “the need for justice and freedom” in Syria. (See letter). A similar approach has been made to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders, and the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe.

Director, Wissam Tarif, draws particular attention to measures introduced in September this year which grant immunity to violators of human rights in Syria. This, he points out, amounts to an “unreasonable impunity being provided by the Syrian State in its approach to human rights.”

He adds that, 45 years after its introduction, Emergency Law in Syria continues to be used as a means for the State to deny Syrian citizens fundamental rights which are otherwise guaranteed by the Syrian Constitution. He highlights the situation of human rights groups, which are prevented from freely doing their work by restrictive laws which may prevent them from being officially established or of having to live with the constant threat of being closed down. Human rights workers, in fact, are routinely prevented from travelling freely outside of the country.In its letter, the organisation publishes a list of 21 prisoners of conscience currently detained by Syria. They range from political to human rights activists, and, in its recommendations, FDPOC requests that these people “must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

In further concerns, the FDPOC Director makes the case regarding the Syrian Kurdish population, emphasising the level of persecution these citizens are subjected to within their own country, and, significantly, quotes a series of resolutions undertaken by the governing Ba’ath Party’s 10th National Conference in 2005 in which acknowledgment was given to the non-mention of the Kurdish community in official census statistics.

Commenting on this, he stated that “No action has, in fact, been taken as yet to rectify the negative consequences of such treatment. To the contrary, new legislation was introduced in September this year to specifically target Syrian Kurds with further discriminatory measures.” In a wide-ranging set of recommendations, FDPOC points out that the Syrian Security Services should stop arbitrary arrest and practices which interfere with the freedom of expression and liberty of citizens, as well as the elimination of emergency law and other legal provisions in Syria which, in its view, are fundamental obstacles to the freedom of citizens in the country.

In a statement to the Press, Mr Tarif explained that “It is no longer acceptable for the international community to restrict itself to addressing regional issues – the Syria-Israel peace process, the Syria-Iraq border, and the relationship between Syria and Lebanon. These have been the three axes on which they have been willing to act till now. A fourth axis must now be added: human rights, as a fundamental to building the kind of societies where peace and stability are established.” In a further move, an FDPOC spokesman revealed that a Delegation from his organisation is currently in Europe and plans are already well advanced for it to also approach representatives of the new US administration in the early part of 2009.

FEATURE ARTICLE: Sixty years on

Wissam Tarif, FDPOC Director (left), currently in Brussels, reports directly from the European Parliament on a Conference held there and organised by the European Union, in conjunction with the United Nations and the Council of Europe in which the Defenders of human rights take centre stage.

The occasion of the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary since the establishment of the Declaration of Human Rights by the UN, puts in evidence the ugly fact that many countries still routinely violate the fundamental rights of their citizens. And they do so while signing the Declaration and other international human rights treaties.

In a revealing article, Mr Tarif talks openly of the situation facing real people fighting for human rights in their countries, and points the way forward in an insightful analysis of the regional framework in the Middle East. (Continue)

Protestors released in Syria

Damascus, Monday 3 Nov 2008: FDPOC sources in Syria confirmed late last night that a total of 191 protestors previously arrested and detained by Security Police following a demonstration held outside the Parliament building in Damascus (see below earlier report) had been released. Despite the fact that, technically, the right to peaceful demonstration and freedom of expression are guaranteed under Syria’s Constitution, Emergency Law in place since 1963 allows the government to prevent any type of protest.

In an unprecedented move, the Syrian Minister of Interior met the organizers of the protest while they were held in custody and explained that his government “does not target the Kurds with the protested law 49”. The obligatory ‘meeting’ held by the Minister while protestors were still in detention, may explain the reason for the high presence of police at the headquarters building to which those arrested were taken. It has been suggested that if the Minister wished to dialogue or explain the background to his government’s legislative moves, it would have been easier and perhaps more democratic to call those concerned to his office instead of speaking to them in the circumstances of what, to all intents and purposes, adds up to the otherwise unacceptable arrest of lawful protestors.

In contrast to the ‘conciliatory’ message the Minister wished to convey, no doubt designed to absorb Kurdish anger internally, there is also reason to suspect his move as forming part of the al-Assad regime's image management when playing to Europe and the West, post-Sarkozy. There is no doubt that al-Assad’s posing outside the Elysee Palace, with the French President’s later visit to Damascus will be factors the Syrians keep to the fore in their considerations.

In sharp contrast, however, to what the Syrian regime would like the outside world to believe, the fact that the leading organizer of yesterday’s demonstration, Hassan Saleh, member of the Political Committee of the Yakiti Kurdish Party in Syria, was the only person who was not released from detention tells a very different story.