Quoted by Patrick Martin, The Globe and Mail – Canada
“All killings are now sectarian in character,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian activist and fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. “The killers are Alawites; the victims Sunnis.”
The United States has closed its embassy in Damascus amid the Syrian ruling junta’s increasingly violent crackdown. As China defends its veto this weekend of a U.N. resolution that might have amounted to nothing more than strong condemnation, the Assad regime, buoyed by continuing Russian and Iranian political and logistical support, including arms shipments, is escalating its murderous rampage. Its goal is to crush the rebellion by brute force; meanwhile, international confusion regarding what can or needs to be done precludes any international effort to protect the protesters. Continue reading “As Syria Violence Continues, World Leaders Do Little”
A mention in SETimes.com:
Ammar Abdulhamid, a US-based Syrian poet and activist who runs the Tharwa Foundation, says “The Turkish government is now forced to make hard choices.”
“Neutrality is not a viable option here, and the question now confronting Mr. Erdogan and his advisers regarding Syria deals with the extent of their potential involvement in managing the looming transition there,” he told SES Turkiye.
“This calls for a greater engagement with opposition groups, and not only the SNC, but also greater logistical and material support to the Syrian Free Army,” he said.
Rights activist says the international response to violence in Syria is merely “symbolic” and “rife with hypocrisy”: an interview on Al-Jazeera online:
Rights groups have estimated that at least 1,600 people have died since the start of the uprising in Syria in March, but that number might increase considerably by the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Since Sunday alone, at least 150 people have been killed in Deir ez-Zor, Hama and Al-Buka-mal – a bloody progression from battles and sieges in other cities and towns such as Deraa, Homs, Latakia and Jirs al-Shughur. But how long can the protests – and the severe crackdowns on them – continue? Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian human rights activist and founder of the non-profit Tharwa Foundation (which promotes democracy and development in in Syria as well as the broader region). He told the foreign affairs committee of the US House of Representatives in the spring of 2008 that, “Change in Syria is not a matter of ‘if’ anymore, but of ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘who’.” Three years later, he still feels the same, and the questions seem closer to being answered by the nation of Syria itself. Abdulhamid tells Al Jazeera what he thinks of the of the international response to the unrest and how he sees the government and protesters arriving at their end games. Continue reading “Ammar Abdulhamid on Syria’s uprising”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 