Rights activist says the international response to violence in Syria is merely “symbolic” and “rife with hypocrisy”: an interview on Al-Jazeera online:

Rights groups have estimated that at least 1,600 people have died since the start of the uprising in Syria in March, but that number might increase considerably by the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Since Sunday alone, at least 150 people have been killed in Deir ez-Zor, Hama and Al-Buka-mal – a bloody progression from battles and sieges in other cities and towns such as Deraa, Homs, Latakia and Jirs al-Shughur. But how long can the protests – and the severe crackdowns on them – continue? Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian human rights activist and founder of the non-profit Tharwa Foundation (which promotes democracy and development in in Syria as well as the broader region). He told the foreign affairs committee of the US House of Representatives in the spring of 2008 that, “Change in Syria is not a matter of ‘if’ anymore, but of ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘who’.”  Three years later, he still feels the same, and the questions seem closer to being answered by the nation of Syria itself. Abdulhamid tells Al Jazeera what he thinks of the of the international response to the unrest and how he sees the government and protesters arriving at their end games. Continue reading “Ammar Abdulhamid on Syria’s uprising” →