Syrian rebels don’t want U.S. aid, at least for now

By Eli Lake, The Washington Times

Syrian rebels who have shaken the regime in Damascus do not want U.S. assistance, at least for now, a Syrian dissident in close touch with the network of protesters told The Washington Times on Sunday.

Ammar Abdulhamid, who has emerged as an unofficial spokesman in the West for the activists organizing the Syrian protests, said, however, that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was wrong to refer to Syrian President Bashar Assad as a reformer on CBS News on Sunday. Continue reading “Syrian rebels don’t want U.S. aid, at least for now” →

Repression or reform?

“Deadly protests may force Syria’s Assad to choose,” says the Christian Science Monitor, with a quote from me among others:

“After Friday and Saturday we can now say that what the Assad regime is facing is a grass-roots uprising for democracy,” says Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian democracy activist based in the United States. “Momentum has spread.”

Syria’s Assad willing to lift emergency law

The Christian Science Monitor thinks I might be going too far for many Syrians by insisting on Assad’s departure. Admittedly such a call might be too early for some, but, knowing Assad and the nature of his regime, I am reading ahead:

But for many Syrians, any compromise that keeps Assad in power is not enough. Exiled Syrian dissident and activist Ammar Abdulhamid said that after numerous human rights abuses, the current Syrian regime has lost all legitimacy, and it has failed to deliver on its promises of reform for more than a decade. Continue reading “Syria’s Assad willing to lift emergency law” →

Protests in Egypt continue despite government shut down of Internet

Quoted in Deutsche-Welle:

The ramifications outside of Egypt are troubling as activists and journalists struggled to understand the situation there, as Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian dissident and human rights activist in the United States, told Deutsche Welle.

“The Internet, and the Tunisian precedent made the world take notice of events in Egypt from day one, whereas it took months for them to notice the importance of developments in Tunisia, but even there, the Internet played a crucial factor,” he said. Continue reading “Protests in Egypt continue despite government shut down of Internet” →