I Fear for Ali!

The fate of the Syrian political prisoner, Muhammad Sha’er Haysah, who died yesterday as a result of the “inhuman conditions of his incarceration” makes me quite worried about the fate of ‘Ali al-‘Abdallah and his two sons who remain missing to this day. We need an international figure to make an appeal on their behalf so that their fate can be ascertained. Their family deserves to know whether they are alive or dead. The international silence in this regard is incomprehensible and inexcusable. Ali & Sons could be undergoing some inhuman torture as we speak. They could also be dead.

What would happen, I wonder, should we find out that one or more of them is indeed dead? What sort of pressures could be brought against the Syrian regime to account for that?

Dissent and Reform in the Arab World

An American Enterprise Institute event

Rather than impose democracy on the Arab world, the United States seeks to support the building blocks for political and economic reform that already exist throughout the region. But as the first installment in AEI’s Dissent and Reform in the Arab World conference series has shown, the brave and bright reformers at the heart of democratic change have little political space with which to work and grow. Continue reading “Dissent and Reform in the Arab World” →

The Plight of Syria’s Young Activists!

Writing for Syria Comment, Joe Pace makes an excellent point about the plight of Syria’s young activists. Turned off by the not-too-surprising gap that separates them from the older generation of activists, and making more convenient victims for the predatory practices of the country’s security services, simply because they are unknown figures and their arrests fail to generate any international backlash, these people are the real risk-takers in the contemporary activist scene in Syria, and has been since the early days of independence. Continue reading →

The Chicken Revolution!

Did I say a while ago that the best option for Syria will be to work out a Jasmine Revolution? Sorry, I actually meant a Chicken Revolution. To judge by the way things are going at this stage, it is really a mini revolution still, but it might just be the spark that can begin it all.

I am talking about the few hundreds Syrian workers affiliated with the poultry industry in Syria who have staged a protest demonstration against the Syrian government. Yes, you heard it, a protest demonstration, in Damascus, hundreds of people carrying banners in front of PM office, protesting against government neglect of their plight. Continue reading “The Chicken Revolution!” →