“What difference can the SNC make if it gets international recognition and loses its legitimacy among the protesters? And what difference can the FSA make, if it fails to get all the emerging paramilitary groups to accept the authority of its Military Council and its leader?” Ammar Abdulhamid, a U.S.-based Syrian dissident who has been critical of the SNC said recently. Abdulhamid has criticized the SNC’s “lack of transparency” and claimed that several independent Syrians who wanted to attend the conference in Tunisia “as monitors” were not allowed in. “So long as SNC leaders remain more preoccupied with winning international recognition than they are with internal cohesion or outreach to their own people, they are destined to become as irrelevant and cut-off from realities as Assad is today,” he said.
Tag: Dissent
Surprise recall of US ambassador to Syria spurred by threats
Quote in the Christian Science Monitor:
“World leaders and Syrian opposition leaders should face the fact that the Syrian situation now requires international intervention and that the Assads need to be stopped by any means necessary,” Ammar Abdulhamid, a prominent Syrian opposition activist based in the US, wrote in his daily newsletter Monday.
Syrian Thugs Try to Intimidate the U.S. Media
Quoted by Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post
The embassy’s clumsy, almost cartoonish, effort to intimidate its critics only serves to highlight the nature of the regime. Ammar Abdulhamid of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies had this take on the embassy’s cloddish attempt to silence dissidents: “The only element of déjà vu involved in this situation is the willingness of Syrian officials and diplomats to lie and distort facts with impunity. Embassies run by Assad officials have served for decades as centers of intimidation of exiled dissidents and their families and friends. Their increased activities in this connection at this stage comes as a cynical and desperate act to stem the tide of change. To no avail. Soon, the justice system of a free Syria will have its say in the matter, and this impunity will come to an end.”
Syrian forces beat up political cartoonist Ali Ferzat
“At this stage, fame may be more of a danger than a protection because the regime does not want any prominent figure to come to the fore and provide a public face for the revolution,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, a US-based dissident and son of Syrian actor Mona Wasif.
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 