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!” →

The Trial of a Dissident!

Kamal Labwani was interrogated today by the criminal court in Damascus. As is usual in such cases, the charges are pretty bogus and nonsensical, after all, what does contacting foreign state really means?

But Kamal did show the composure and confidence expected of him, as his lawyers noted, who themselves have been in his position not too long ago. Still, the trial of Kamal did not generate much attention in the press. Kamal has been forgotten, or at least, he was lost in that growing avalanche of jailed dissidents. This is why the idea for a freedom rally is now more necessary than ever. We cannot let people like Kamal be forgotten. We cannot let them be lost in the shuffle.

Free Ali! Free Alaa! Free Ramin! Free Fateh! Free US All!

And the list goes on. It’s pretty depressing really. The backlash against civil rights activists in the region seems to be in full force these days. Why is it a backlash? Because I believe it is closely connected to the US continuing troubles in Iraq and to the fact the Bush’s second term in office is drawing to an end. The regimes are taking a defiant stand in resonance with Ahmadinejad’s own stands. Continue reading →

The Shape of Things to Come!

If Ali ‘Abddlah and his two sons’ family has finally managed tofind outwhere they are, the family of Fateh Jamous is stilllooking, five days after his arrest.

This is the new style that Assef Chawkat, the head of the military security apparatus which we now know was behind the dramatic disappearance of Ali and his two sons, seems to have selected for dealing with all those dissidents who were daring enough to try to bridge the gulf between the internal and external opposition groups, even when their efforts were not necessarily that successful. For, unlike his former comrade in arms, Riyad al-Turk, Fateh’s enduring old-style communist predilections had already constrained his abilities to enter into serious dialogue or strike a serious deal with any of the existing groups in Europe. Continue reading “The Shape of Things to Come!” →