Six Years Later!

The following is my new contribution to the Creative Syria Think Tank. Hope you find this week’s discussions interesting:

Rather than trying to list the series of phantom reforms and promises of reforms that Bashar has introduced into our lives over the last six years, or embark on another debunking of the whole concept of voodoo economics, I will simply mention the following impressions: Continue reading “Six Years Later!” →

The Brave Bounni!

Anwar al-Bounni, brave Syrian lawyer and human rights activist, is nowenteringinto his second week of being on a hunger strike. His tenacity seems to have inspired the remaining 10 activists, who were all arrested as part of the recent wave of crackdown in the country, to decide to undertake a similar strike themselves this coming Monday. Meanwhile, Anwar will reportedly be taken to the Ibn al-Nafees Hospital soon, as his condition continues to worsen and his morale continues to sag. Anwar was kidnapped as he was about to enter his car a week ago, and was repeatedly beaten for a few days, in spite of his age and ill health (he is in his 60s). This heretic can only pray for Brave Anwar at this stage, and can only bemoan the fate of a country who insists on devouring her best and most devout children.

Free Syria!

Kudos to the Syrians in Paris fororganizing this important sit-in support of Syria’s dissidents and activists in these difficult times. For indeed our colleagues in Syria need every little help we can give them, seeing the difficult conditions of their imprisonment, and seeing that Anwar al-Bunni continues to refuse to end his hunger strike, which he started both in protest of his unlawful imprisonment and theludicrous charges which were brought against him, including that of taking part in a secret society that seeks to overthrow the regime. Continue reading →

A Carefully Worded Message!

The State Department has just followed the EU leads and issued its own condemnation of the ongoing crackdown against dissidents and activists in Syria. Yet, and albeit the language in both cases was pretty stern, it does not appear that there exist any plans for going beyond rhetoric at this stage. Indeed, everybody seems to be waiting for the upcoming UN report into the Hariri assassination, which means that if any action is going to take place, it won’t happen until mid June or thereafter. But, and while this attitude might make some sense politically speaking, it, nonetheless, gives the Assads a free hand to keep on doing what they are doing for a few more weeks, because it has become very obvious now that the Assads do not respond well to rhetoric. They, too, can wax poetic on us. Continue reading “A Carefully Worded Message!” →