From Ali to Alaa. From Syria to Egypt!

Egyptian Sandmonkey wants us to move heaven and earth on behalf of Egyptian blogger and democracy activist, Alaa, who got arrested today during a protest to support the Judiciary’s branch fight for independence. Seeing that I am a fellow blogger, an advisor to the Committee to Protect Bloggers, and a member in the international jury that voted to grant Alaa (and his wife Manal) the special award offered by Reporters Without Borders in late 2005, I say, let’s do it. Details here.

Defiant Messages!

Crackdown against western-oriented activists in Syria is proceeding apace and has been for quite a few weeks now, as we all know. The latest installments were the March 24 arrest of Samir Nashar, the founder of a liberal party based in Aleppo and one of the internal opposition figures who took part in breaking the barrier separating the “inside” and the “outside” when he attended the opposition conference organized by the Syrian National Council in Washington, DC at the end of February 2005. Samir was released a week later and put under a travel ban. Continue reading →

Mr. Assad, take down our wall

Special to The Daily Star

On May 24, at around 6:00 am, the Syrian authorities arrested all eight members of the board of directors of the Jamal Atasi Forum for Democratic Dialogue in Syria. The forum was the only tolerated independent political forum left in the country, and the only one to survive the earlier crackdown on political dissent that the regime organized in 2001, putting an end to the so-called “Damascus spring.” Continue reading “Mr. Assad, take down our wall” →

Another Demonstration of Weakness and Confusion!

A few hours ago, the Atassy 8 were released. International and internal pressures seem to have paid off. As such, and rather than coming as a demonstration of strength, as it was intended to be, the entire move came as a further demonstration of the Regime’s weakness, confusion and lack of resolve.

Continue reading “Another Demonstration of Weakness and Confusion!” →