Decentering Damascus

To Change

2008-02-26T15:12:00.002+02:00

This blog will no longer be updated.

Explosion in Damascus Kills One

2008-02-13T07:11:00.002+02:00

My room was shaking the minute I heard that sound. I thought it was Israel, the neighbors thought it was a tank of gas, but only the dead knew what it was.

Update: no "militant" was killed, but a fighter was assassinated.

Syrian Bloggers Campaign to Free Fellow Blogger Tariq Biasi

2008-02-04T23:24:00.000+02:00

It all started when one did: Ahmad published several entries concerning the detention of Tariq, the jailed Syrian blogger, but it is only when his blog was added on the SYPlanet aggregator that I had the chance to be aware of Tariq's situation. I reacted by contacting all the bloggers who reported on Tariq's detention and asked for their help in organizing a campaign to help secure Tariq's release. And here we are; Ahmad purchased and designed the websites, Arwa and Omar contacted human rights organizations and news agencies, Okbah is following up Tariq's news with a lawyer, Omar created a group on Facebook. I also contributed by updating the websites and creating an online petition demanding Tariq's release.

As it stands, we're just five. We are five Syrian bloggers writing from our censored Syria.

You can find our Free Tariq campaign by clicking here for an English version, and here for the Arabic.

Our Statement:

Our mission is supposedly guaranteed in the introduction of Syria's Constitution: “The freedom of the country is only protected by free citizens.”

Article 28 in the constitution dictates that: “Every accused person is innocent until he is convicted by a final court judgment.”

Tariq’s online speech does not constitute a violation of the law. In fact, he actually acted on the basis of freedom, which as stated earlier, is guaranteed by the Constitution via Article 38, which states: “Every citizen has the right to express his opinion freely and openly, orally and written and in all other means of expression. He also has the right to contribute in the control process and in the constructive criticism to ensure the safety of national reconstruction."

Feel free to read the full statement.

Please take a minute and consider signing our petition.

You can also help us spread the word by joining our group on Facebook.

If you wish to post a banner of solidarity on your blog or website, you may choose from a list of banners here. Insert the image URL within the code here and you'll get a badge of the banner you've chosen. Please contact us for any questions, or if you have a banner of your own to contribute.

Why Support Us?

Some of the arguments made unfortunately undermine the effectiveness of the likes of this campaign, assuming that there is one goal, which is simply and strictly to literally "free" the imprisoned blogger or person. This campaign however goes way beyond such claims and aims to protect the very principles of freedom and human rights. To answer and refute some of these arguments, the Free Tariq Coalition has interviewed the Syrian human rights activist and lawyer Razan Zeituna and asked her a couple of questions regarding the validity of such campaigns:

Free Tariq: Are these campaigns important? If so, in what sense?

رزان زيتونة: ‫هذه الحملات مهمة جدا، أهم ما فيها أنها أخرجت قضايا حريات الرأي والتعبير من ثنائية العلاقة ما بين المنظمات الحقوقية والسلطة، لتجعل منها قضية رأي عام، تهم دوائر أوسع من الأفراد والجماعات

‫وهي إلى جانب الاهتمام ب والدفاع عن أفراد بعينهم تعرضوا لانتهاكات في حقوقهم وحرياتهم الأساسية، تنشر الوعي بقضية الحريات والانتهاكات.

‫هذا من جانب، من جانب آخر، مضى زمن طويل في منطقتنا العربية، حيث كانت مختلف الانتهاكات تمارس بحق الأفراد بدون أي اهتمام إعلامي وحقوقي فعلي، هذا الأمر بدأ يتغير الآن، هذه الحملات إلى جانب ما تمارسه من ضغط معنوي على السلطات الحاكمة، تعطي الأفراد المنتهكة حقوقهم جزءا مما يستحقونه، باعتبارهم أفراد لهم أسماء وأحلام ...الخ، أي أنها تؤنسن هذه القضايا ‫وتنقلها من إطار العموميات والمجرد إلى إطار الشخصي.

Razan Zeituna: These campaigns are very important, mostly for unleashing the freedom of speech causes from the dual relationship between the regime and human rights organizations, to make it a public affair that would interest wider circles of people and groups. And while these campaigns lobby for and defend people whose basic rights and freedoms are abused, they also raise awareness on the cause for free speech.

Furthermore, it has been a long time in the Arab region since human rights abuses been taken place without effectual attention from media and human rights agencies. This is changing now; these kinds of campaigns and as they put symbolic pressure on the government, it gives the individuals whose rights are invaded, part of what they deserve, and treat them as people with names and dreams…these kinds of campaigns personify and humanize the abstract causes and transfer them from generalizations frames into personal frames.

Free Tariq: What about Tariq himself, how would this campaign be beneficial to him?

رزان زيتونة: هي حق له قبل أن تكون مفيدة له أم لا، ‫في مثل أنظمتنا، الحكومات لا تكترث كثيرا بالضغوط من هذا النوع، هذا لا يعني أبدا أن لا تمارس مثل هذه الضغوط.

Razan Zeituna: It's his right, before it can be beneficial to him or not. With governments like ours, these kinds of pressures don’t affect the regimes much; this is no reason why we should not practice these pressures in the first place.

And Esra'a Al Shafei, director of the Free Kareem campaign notes that the aim of activism is "to change," and stresses on the movement of change:

Activists generally have a passion towards a set of issues that they feel need to be changed, and they are inspired enough to be part of the movement that changes these things, either partly or entirely (if they are part of a movement that is big and influential enough, but most activism today comes in very small doses.)

In other words, campaigns like this one might qualify as a form of "activism" (though I like to refer to it as "volunteerism"), help serve a major role in communities that suffer from decades of dictatorship like that of Syria. The Free Tariq Coalition can advocate and promote national ownership, and harnessing citizen participation within the process of the country's development that has been exclusively up to the Syrian authorities and to Syrian opposition(s). Campaigning, volunteering, or being active is not only about raising awareness about Tariq's case or about freedom of speech, but also about the necessity for all Syrian people and youth to contribute and to participate instead of comforting to the paralyzed community state the Syrian regime managed to build for decades by force.

Syrian Bloggers Under Threat

Tariq Biasi is not the only and the first Syrian blogger who is currently in prison, long before I have started this blog about a year ago, a Syrian blogger named Tariq Gorani was detained on 19-2-2006 for a year and four months before being charged with a seven years sentence verdict on 17-6-2007 for "endangering Syria's security". His blog's name was Aldomari. "Aldomari" is originally taken from the first and the last independent Syrian newspaper that addressed and investigated the corruption of the Syrian authorities for a few months before it was shut down by the regime. (Aldomari was a revolutionary newspaper and though its price was five times the official newspapers', its editions were always sold out.)

I could not read any post by the blogger Aldomari for the Syrian authorities have hacked his blog and deleted all his posts' archive, all I know is that he blogs in Arabic and his posts were seethingly sarcastic. Aldomari blog was the first Syrian blog to be blocked by the Syrian authorities as reported by the Damascene blog.

Tariq Gorani (1985) was not detained only for his blogging activity, he was mainly detained and imprisoned along with his seven friends for establishing a "Democratic Syrian Youth Activity." Because of their online organized activism, they faced harsh and serious verdicts with seven and five years sentences.

A campaign has been launched to support the young men can be found here.

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‫‬

So basically whoever initiates to express and voice his/her opinions in an organized manner, they are detained and imprisoned for years. Which explains the decreasing amount of Syrian insiders who care about Syrian public affairs.

Tariq Biasi is detained for an online comment criticizing the government, but Tariq Gorani was detained and faced serious charges and is spending seven years in prison not for expressing his views as much as for expressing them within an establishment and an organized body. Hence Syrian insiders prefer to work independently, mostly anonymously and not in groups.

Another example of harassment by the authority towards Syrian bloggers is when the Syrian intelligence kidnapped Syrian bloggeress Rukana Hammour. She is very vocal about the authorities and judicial system's corruption in Syria, and was thus threatened by the intelligence forces to withdraw her nomination to the Syrian parliament.

How You Can Help:

1. Write about Tariq or freedom of online speech on your site or blog.
2. Link to our campaign.
3. Email your friends about us and ask them to sign the petition.
4. Contact NGOs and media agencies in your circles.
5. Email us campaign-related feedbacks and suggestions.

Very Important Rockets

2008-01-23T21:01:00.000+02:00

I don’t appreciate it when Arab bloggers and media agencies report and cover the Gaza blockade merely through the death of children and women – not sure why Palestinian men's lives don’t count. It is as if the problem is not in death itself but in the death of children. So the counter argument by Israelis would be by starting to count Palestinian children who have died due the siege and support their arguments with the lack of resources:

"More Muslim mendacity. If children were indeed starving, why are there no photos of their swollen bellies?"

According to this logic, one can argue that since there are no photos of the Holocaust gas chambers in which the Jews were collectively massacred by the Nazis, then I guess the gas chambers did not exist.

To get back to my point, the argument to oppose the Israel’s apartheid policies against the Gazans and Palestinians, in general, should not be through counting/demonstrating dead children and women or even merely focusing on the inhumane conditions that the Palestinians are going through. The argument should in fact address the apartheid racist logic that produced such inhumane practices. My problem is not by bringing up the victims in the Gaza blockade coverage but rather making it the argument to oppose Israel as a counter argument. Death and shortage of food, medicine and fuel are only the visible practices of an Israeli apartheid state. They are not the problem of this state and hence they shouldn’t be our rhetoric and our defense against Israel.

It seems that we have the right to "speak", so loudly, against Israel when we have a picture of a child dying that without this child, we wouldn’t have a case against Israel's inhumane blockade of Gaza.

The Arab rhetoric should renew its arguments, which are again, bombastic and not strategically analytical in reading their own realities in relation to the enemy or in reading the enemy's strategy that constantly presents itself as a "prior" party in the "Palestinian-Israeli struggle." The thing that would damage the core of the Palestinian cause when readers support us merely as sympathizers with the dead children and not as supporters to Palestinians' right to live secure and equal to Israeli citizens.

Having said this, I have something to say about Israel’s right to 'self-defense' against Qassam rockets.

Before assuming there is an opponent struggle taking place between the Israelis and Palestinians, one should agree then that the two parties, equally, have the basic right to live peacefully and securely, and accordingly have the right to self-defense. But when Israel, supported by the UN, US and Europe, keeps prioritizing Israeli citizens at the expense of Palestinian citizens, one should not adhere to the term "Israel-Palestine struggle" since it suggests an adversary. In "Israel-Palestine struggle" there is one party - Israel - which has the right to exist, and hence the right of self-defense. And for that right, it has the right to control the other party's right to live peacefully: it decides on behalf of the Gazans how they should live: "not easily", and block their access to fuel, food and medicine and arbitrary night-raid their homes and bulldoze them on their heads.

This Israeli right to live and right of self-defense is embedded in every single report, with or against Israel’s complete closure of Gaza Strip:

“We all understand the security problems and the need to respond to that but collective punishment of the people of Gaza is not, we believe, the appropriate way to do that,” said John Holmes.

So while the world wholeheartedly backs the right of Israelis to live securely, the world is merely sympathizing with the Gazans lack of fuel, food and medicine. i.e. lack of life.

With Israel, the rhetoric is about its safety and its right to exist and for that, it has the right to defend this very existence and life. With the Palestinians, the rhetoric comes as the right to eat, have hospitals and be warm in winter. Palestinians don’t have the right to have a life, or to exist, and certainly not the right to defend themselves. Palestinians are not equal to Israelis – they are inferior. They have the right to be fed only. While Israelis are always remembered, the Gazans are only remembered when they are dead.

Again, the world prioritizes Israelis, even when they support the Gazans now.

And the Arabs celebrate this utterly biased stance with the right of Israelis to be secure when their mere opposition to the siege is dealt with on a humanitarian basis while they should be arguing for the right of Palestinians to live equally – just like the Israelis, securely and peacefully not just in regards to their basic needs to survive.

Furthermore, all the reports seem to be convinced that Israel’s siege on Gaza is a "reaction" to Qassam rockets when they recognize Israel's right to "self-defense but demand its attention to Gazans’ humanitarian rights. I find this rhetoric as apologetic to Israel’s terrorist policies against the Palestinians. Linking between Qassam rockets and Israel’s two-year siege on Gaza is dealt with on one level, as if the damages on both sides are similar. Let's take a look at Gaza's damages because of the siege:

68 Patients killed by Israeli Occupation due to Closure!

1562 patients in need of treatment outside Gaza Strip

322 patients are in serious danger and in need of urgent treatment

22 money holistic are suspended from work due to the siege

107 class of basic medicines are depleted from Gaza Strip

97 sorts of medicines on the verge of depletion

136 medical instrument are stopped or our of order

6 months, Gaza with closed crossings and borders

160 thousand workers are out of work

3000 fishermen become out of work due to siege

$370 millions are the costs of stalled construction projects

$14 million are the wastage of strawberry and flowers season

4500 strawberry farmers become out of work

470 cancer patients are likely to die

And on the Israeli side:

Homemade rockets have killed in a most updated report 12 Israelis, including three children, according to Israeli Defence Forces.

Yoram Schweitzer of Tel Aviv's Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies comments:

"Qassams are very primitive missiles and their main effect on Israelis in the area is psychological torment - a kind of Chinese water torture."

So I wonder how can psychological insecurities be considered parallel to the blows mentioned above which the Palestinians have suffered, and how can two years of blockades be considered a "reaction" to such primitive rockets? Hence, the link that is meant to be apologetic to war crimes committed on civilians to maintain the security and not the lives of Israelis, only takes into consideration their psychological situation.

I find the argument in Betselem report on the closure of the Gaza Strip able to stand on its own in unfolding the truth behind the Israeli siege on Gaza:

"Israeli authorities often exploit security threats in order to advance prohibited political interests under the guise of security."

Indeed, Sderot is inhabited by"Mizrachi" Jews and not by Azhkenazis, and some of the inhabitants feel insecure not only from the Qassam rockets but from the racist Israeli government:

"The worst part of all this isn't the rocket fire - it's the fact that the government just doesn't care," says a Sderot settler.

While I reject the article altogether, I think it sheds light on something that can be useful to unfolding the Israeli government's lies in claiming its "need to protect" its settlers; they're not killing civilians for Sderot settlers but against Gazans' political reality - Hamas. So the siege is strictly practiced for political reasons and not for security reasons.

Why is Israel targeting Hamas now? This is where my amateur reading ends.

An Hour for Gaza

2008-01-23T19:29:00.000+02:00

For those who're in Syria and in Damascus there is going to be a silent strike :

Let’s break the silence in support of our children in Gaza. Dare to say no to the ongoing injustices taking place in the shadow of regional politics, orchestrated Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and the glamorous visit of the western presidents. Peace starts by stopping the killing of innocent children everywhere. Join us to a peaceful gathering to submit a petition to the United Nation.

Time: Friday January 25, 2008 at 12.30 p.m
Place: United Nation Building Mezzah, Western Villas, Ghazawi Street. Damascus, Syria

I am not in favor of strikes and demonstrations in countries like Syria for few reasons:

1- Can the public influence its government when the government is in isolation with the whole world? even though Syria is a "proud Arab country" and all, but didn’t Egypt, Jordan and KSA, despite of their submissive and assimilations to/with the American administration, have used their very ties with the West and Israel to help the Gazans? How can Syria be an Arab and so generous to Palestinians as it claims if it doesn’t have an affect whatsoever?

not to read my comment as in favor with similar submissive relations of Syria with the Americans or the Europeans, what I am saying, is that a complete isolation as that of Syria is as bad as a complete submissiveness as that of Egypt, KSA and Jordan. So no heroes here.

2-so if the government cannot affect the world, how can the public affect the government? Assuming the government actually cares what its public thinks.

3-so why go to the strike then? I think in paralyzed communities like the Syrian one, civil disobedience and strikes are beneficial to the makers of these activities rather than to the receivers. It would encourage them to be part of the Syrian and regional public affairs, and I have learned that the creation of an active society start with simple multiple tries to gradually become greater.

4-But what really can we do to the Gazans? I believe what we can do is raise carefully studied awareness AND donate. And so far I know this link to donate money to Gaza:

TAKAFUL: The Palestinian Refugee Support Network

Living in Gaza

2008-01-18T13:39:00.000+02:00

They know they'll live tonight, when another family dies.
Living in Gaza, is living under occupation.

If Motherhood is Selfless

2008-01-18T11:16:00.000+02:00

How come women need to give birth in order to be mothers?
What about the children without mommies?
Parents like to be their own children "selfless" parents. Not sure how motherhood and fatherhood are selfless.

I think there should be a holiday for adoptive parents whom can have children, but chose to be parents to children without parents. Oh but wait, adoption is prohibited in Syria, so decided our most wise moral Muslim Sheikhs. But hey, that means I need to be thankful that I have another citizenship; I still can adopt a Syrian orphan child because of a non-Syrian citizenship, to give the lone child a real home, give her real education, and perhaps give her other alternatives and chances to becoming a better Syrian. Wonder why we always need foreign papers in order to build our most beloved Syria.

It Could Be You: Release Syrian Blogger Tarek Baiasi

2008-01-08T19:51:00.000+02:00

Tarek was detained on 7-7-2--7 for critiquing security forces in Syria. He has not been taken to court up to this moment

His name is Tarek Baiasi and he's 23 years old. He lives in Banyas with his mother and two sisters. His father was detained during the 80s by the Syrian security agents, who mistook him for a Muslim Brotherhood member, where he spent 20 years behind bars.

Tarek sells and maintains PCs. He is described by his friends as shy and quiet, spending his time surfing the web and blogging at Ektub here.

On 7-7-2007, Tarek was asked by the security branch in Banyas to answer a few questions concerning a comment he left on one of the "sensitive" websites. That was the last his family heard from him.

I had previously mentioned Tarek on my blog when I posted about the kidnapping of the Syrian bloggeress Rukana Hammour by Syrian security agents, but had not heard anything new about him until yesterday when Syrian bloggers reported on the day which marked the completion of his six months of detention. The bloggers appealed to Syrian and international human rights agencies to highlight his case and the cases of others as well.

Syrian blogger Ahmad was the first to write about Tarek's case:

اعتقل طارق بياسي بتاريخ 7-7-2007م.
- سبب اعتقاله تعليق له في منتدى أنا مسلم تعرّض فيه لإيجابيات وسلبيات أجهزة الأمن.
- بعد اعتقاله فُتّش منزله ، و صودرت حواسيبه.
- انتهى التحقيق معه لكونه اعترف بتعليقه مباشرة، لكن لحد الآن لم يُحال للمحكمة ، و لا يُعرف مصيره.
- طارق وحيد لأمه ، من مواليد 84 ، من مدينة بانياس الساحلية.
- اعتقل أبوه لمدة 20 عاماً من أيام الأحداث ، كان عُمْرُ طارقٍ حينها بضعة أشهر فقط

-Tarek Bayasi was detained on 7-7-2007 for a comment he left on one of the forums called "I am a Muslim" in which he presented the advantages and the disadvantages of the Syrian security forces policies.
-His house was searched and his computers were confiscated after his detention.
-Investigators were through with him ever since he confessed posting the comment, but until now he was not taken to court and no one knows his whereabouts.
-Tarek is his mother's only son, born in 1984 in Banyas.
-His father was sentenced for 20 years during the 80s when Tarek was a few months old at the time.

Ahmad posted several posts earlier on Tarek's detention in which we learn that the detained blogger was later on taken to Palestine Camp's security branch in Damascus:

لتصفحه مواقع انترنت ، طارق مازال في معتقلا في فرع فلسطين بدمشق
طارق عمر بياسي ، مواليد 84، يعمل في محله في بيع أجهزة الكمبيوتر و صيانتها الكائن في مدينة بانياس الساحلية.
لم يكن الدكتور عمر منظما في جماعة الإخوان و لا أحسبه مقتنعا بأفكارهم حتى يومنا هذا
عن تهمة طارق فهي تصفحه و مشاركته في مواقع “مشبوهة” و ينظر لها بعين الريبة من قبل الأمن ، و هذه المواقع على الأغلب هي موقع أنا مسلم و موقع آخر شبيه به

For surfing the Internet, Tarek is still being held in the Palestine Camp's security branch in Damascus.
Born in 1984, Tarek Omar Bayasi, sells and maintains PCs where he lives in the coastal town of Banyas.
Dr Omar wasn’t a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and I don’t think he is convinced of their thought even today.
Tarek is being accused of surfing the Internet and ‘suspected’ sites, feared by the security forces. Most probably the site is “I am Muslim” or something similar.

Another Syrian blogger, Jassas, blogs about Tarek's case asking us to write to the Syrian human rights agencies and support Tarek. Marfa' blog owner, too, adds his voice to Jassas' appeal and asks us to shed some light on Tarek's case by contacting human rights agencies.

Arwa wishes that all the bloggers would agree on a certain statement to publish on their blogs:

أتمنى من جميع المدونات أن تتفق على “خطاب نصي” يشارك فيه المدونون كخطوة عملية وجماعية من أجل طارق

I hope all the bloggers would agree on a text in which the bloggers would participate in publishing as a practical and collective step in support of Tarek

And finally, the owner of Msabba' el Karat Syrian blog writes on Tarek's detention wondering why every time a Syrian citizen is detained for merely criticizing his nation's flaws, asserting that it's the people who eventually defend their nation:

هل من المعقول أن يسجن الإنسان كل هذه المدة من أجل كلمة تقال في حق الوطن ؟! عندما أنتقد الوطن والقائمين عليه ، هذا لا يعني أني لا أحبهم و لا أتمنى لهم الخير ، بل أنتقدهم لأني أريد أن يكون وطني مثالا يحتذى به في كل المجالات ، هؤلاء الشباب هم زهرة الأوطان ، هم الذين سيدافعون عن قضايا الأوطان ، و بهمتم العالية تبنى الأوطان ، فلماذا تنزع كرامة الشاب من أجل كلمة تقال ، إن كنا نعرف أن بعض كلمات ستودي بنا إلى السجن ، فسنوقف أقلامنا ، و نغلق أفواهنا ، و نقطع ألسنتنا ، و نجلس عبادا نساكا ننتظر رحمة الله و فرجه القريب

Is it possible to detain someone this long for having his say on his nation's affairs? When I criticize my nation and its leaders, it doesn't mean that I dislike them or wish them harm. I just do it to make my country better in all fields. Those youngsters are the nation's blossoms; they'll defend and protect the country, and with them we build it. So why are we stripping a man of his dignity for a word he said? If we knew that a few words would lead us to jail, we would stop writing, shut our mouths, cut our tongues and sit back as slaves waiting for God's mercy.

At the end of his post, the blogger draws our attention to important statistics:

ملاحظة : هناك 40 ألف قضية في قصر العدل لم تتطرق لها المحكمة بعد ، هذا ما أشارت إليه النائب العام غادة مراد في حديثها للجزيرة ضمن برنامج رائدات

P.S. There are 40,000 pending cases in the Justice Courthouse that the judiciary has not dealt with up to now, as general prosecutor Ghada Murad said on Al-Jazeera.

Up to this moment, one Syrian human rights agency did report on Tarek's detention at the very day of his detention on 7-7-2007. HRW mentioned his name in its report on Syrian officials' continuous arrests of people over online comments:

On June 30, 2007, Military Intelligence in the coastal city of Tartous arrested Tarek Biasi, 22, because he “went online and insulted security services,” according to a person familiar with the case. Biasi remains in incommunicado detention, his whereabouts unknown.

The HRW report says Tarek was detained on June 30, but the Syrian human rights agency and his family and friends confirmed that Tarek was detained on the 7th. of July and not on June 30th. I am noting this issue for documentation purposes.

Tarek does not stand alone in these arrests policy over online comments, the HRW report lists seven names among those who've been detained for expressing their views online. This policy started in 2002 but it has been increasing recently and especially after the “Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology” circular; Sami Ben Gharbia wrote about the repression of internet in Syria and here he uncovers the circular's instructions:

Recently, the new-formed “Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology” issued a new circular asking the owners of the Syrian websites “to exercise accuracy and objectivity (…) and to post the name of the writer of an article and the one who comments on it in a clear and detailed manner.” The Ministry added that “the failure to do so would result in warning the website owner and rendering his website temporarily inaccessible. In case the violation is repeated, the website will become permanently inaccessible.

Here's my response to this circular.

It is not a secret that the Syrian tyrant regime is tight on the Syrian people and tighter on those who try to break through, but as I mentioned earlier in my blog there is no space on the ground for the youth to express their views or to embody their interests except on the cyber world. So what made li Zein al-`Abideen Mej`an, Karim ‘Arbaji (29), Tarek Biasi (22) and many others turn to the Internet? Isn't it the very absent tangible Syria? Among all of the people who live in Syria, the Syrian government is detaining those who actually care about the Syrian public affair, those who care about Syria; those who have opinions and express them online simply because they can’t express themselves elsewhere. So by detaining these people, the Syrian government is making one of its exquisite statements: "don’t even bother to think and have a say, we'll just do it for you".

So there is no tangible Syria, and soon enough there might be no virtual Syria as well, I wonder how can there be Syrians without Syria, or Syria without Syrians who care.

Censorship in Syria is not a joke and it's shouldn’t be viewed as the "norm/typical/predictable policies" of the tyrannical Syrian government. We're not talking about the imprisonment of political activists anymore, not even human rights activists, we're talking about detaining people, just people like you and me, mostly students, whose mere accusation was having opinions, whether I agree with them or not, and mostly I don’t, is never the case, but the fact that someone who still cares and dares to express her/his views in Syria is not the norm, it's a rare case, and the detention of these rare people is very serious.

For those who are interested in helping Tarek and his family please send me and email at arab.spring@gmail.com.

Many thanks to Amira al Hussaini for editing this post.

Little Marginalizer

2008-01-07T11:38:00.000+02:00

I had a huge fight with dad last night, it was the kind of fight that makes you retreat more from your parents, even though the more they grow older the more you feel responsible towards them and scared to lose them. But some people cease to grow up once they become parents.

I got dressed and left home, walked to this mall that's near where I live, I was supposed to wait for a friend to pick me up, I just needed a drink.

Taxi drivers where pressing their cars' horns asking me if I needed a lift, people pass by looking at the lone girl with the high heels boots, but only one approached me:

....خديلك مسّاحة يا خالة, أربعة ب 100, الله يخليكي, منشان الله, أربعة ب 100

I didn’t look at him at first, I was accustomed to ignore beggars and especially children beggars: we should not encourage them to beg by giving them what they expect from us.

But he kept talking, some get tired and leave you alone when you ignore them, some change their begging style and start crying to get what they want, but this little kid did not change his tone, nor his words, nor his facial features, nothing changed at all, he just kept talking raising his little head at me. I looked at him while he was addressing me, I kept looking at him for few seconds, at his wide brown eyes while blinking, he is looking at my eyes and he cannot see me, I was invisible to him, he was invisible to him. I freaked out; I inserted my hand into my purse to give him the money: "I don’t need anything, just take the money." He got the money and walked away quietly, I changed my spot.

My friend came just this minute, I got into the car faceless. Sat back thinking about this kid whose face was tougher than dad's.

Many are poor and many people's lives are abused and many are many sad horrible things, each child beggar has a horrible story, but some remain children while begging, they lie and cry and act but you can still feel their sad childhood. This kid wasn’t a child, his very marginalization dehumanized him and his dehumanization marginalized me, he cannot notice life, he is dead. I was dead that minute. His problem is my problem. I am not being selfless, I am being very selfish.

Many things make children what they are, it's not their innocence, but their curiosity and their attentiveness to details, they observe things we take for granted. That fundamental characteristic was not there in this kid, and that's what made me truly scared.

Too much attention makes you invisible sometimes.

Here I have to say that during my stay in Beirut, I ran into one child beggar, I talked to him and introduced myself as a Syrian, "I am Syrian too! I am Kurdish, and you're invited to visit us anytime", he said.

Why most beggars in Syria are children? And why is it normalized?
I was thinking after that bloggers meetup to have a certain theme each monthly blogger meetup, that every meeting there is a "Syrian Bloggers' Story of the Month" and I am thinking that this month's story would be on children beggars, each blogger would sit down in the café interviewing the child and reflect his/her situation on her/his blog, it's not that we're helping them or reflecting their truths, but I guess it's a good start to try to understand? and perhaps one day we'll try to help other people's children. That's what it means to be part of any country and any nation, what it means to call yourself "Syrian", this very suffix, n, simply means you care enough to make Syria better.

Free Fouad

2008-01-06T08:46:00.000+02:00

Day of Blog Silence for Fouad

Syrian Bloggers Meetup: A Tribute to Occupied Golan Heights

2007-12-30T00:20:00.000+02:00

I woke up at 7: AM, I had a lot of things needed to be done: go to the coiffure, check my email, make 16 copies of JAP program on CDs, get early to Nofara and hang on the sign. I did none of the above except one: I did hang the sign:

So we finally meet, 10 bloggers out of 15 showed up in the meeting and Mwaffaq came from Jordan to join us. We were sitting next to each other, templates are substituted with faces, laughters are there to evaporate virtual impressions, discussions instead of comments. We were the same but we were moving. This was my first meeting with them, those whom i felt for different kinds of feelings, but I did choose to read them.

We got along just fine, I mean it's weird that it went fine, we weren’t shy or anything, we talked non-stop, we laughed (I mean duh, Ihsan was there) and we talked about occupied Golan, present-day society and masculine society among many others topics.

I have to say that I was a bit worried about meeting Ihsan, he and I always disagree and we exchanged some unkind messages and comments, he started it. So I was ready for him; I've put a fake warm smile on my face and went to this Couchsurfing meeting in which both of us were members of. I was amazed how much me and Ihsan think alike (now he'll disagree), I never thought me and him could actually agree on anything, I wish he could be more active.

Omar is adorable, I loved his character, and I am waiting to meet him again and have a long discussion with him, I love his analytical arguments. He was quiet at the meeting, I think he's shy, ladies sure like shy guys, (hello wife, I am just saying…) I wish he could join us back.

I met Ammar when Yazan was here, we were actually all very quiet and we did not talk much at that meeting, except Zena. But at this meeting I got to know him a bit more, he's got some cute sense of humor. I wish he could join us back.

Shady has nothing to do with the impression I took on him, first, he has to change that profile picture, and the one on Facebook too please, cause he looks way much better than that, and he has a sexy voice (I cant believe what this post is turning into), and he is opinionated, we need to talk more about his theory on a masculine society, from how I got it, I didn’t like it very much. I wish he could be more active.

Because of him, I did not have to be the ONLY bloggeress among 10 bloggers, he called the bloggeress Rima and she was kind enough to join us right away. Right now I am in a hating-period towards the three bloggeresses who said they're coming but they didn’t. Ladies, how could you?

I love Rima's blog, It's a rare thing to find a woman who's active and with a cause due to many reasons. She was the one who introduced me to Nesa' Sy (Syrian Women) site, I think she and I share the same interests in regards to women issues in Syria and we will be meeting the girls to discuss some ideas. I wish she could be more active.

Mwaffaq was kind enough to come all the way from Jordan to join us, he shared with us some interesting stories on the Jordanian bloggers, 60 of them meet up monthly? I mean, I am jealous and all, but if 60 Syrians are to meet in a café, we will be eating 7alaweh somewhere else. I wish he could be less active :P

I have seen Zaid's blog link on other blogs, but I haven’t read it, so I cannot say that I have a met blogger, but that I have met Zaid. I wish he could join us back.

I have met the rest of the bloggers before; me and Free Man are working together on the activity against Syrian internet censorship, his blog is a must. Amre and I took lessons on GRE and he's a dear friend, and I have met Yaser before too.

We've discussed in the meeting an idea of an annual contest: "Best Syrian Blogger" that should encourage inactive bloggers to be active.

I have met most of the ones I wanted to meet, I still got a few ahead, and I can't wait.

كل سنة والولاد, كلّ الولاد سالمين

2007-12-24T14:55:00.000+02:00

مو بس ولادنا

تحية إلى عاملي نظافة سوريا: من غيركن كانت البلد ما بتنداس

A Moment of Silence for the Shuhada' of Iraq

2007-12-18T18:28:00.000+02:00

Taken from Eyad Hussami

You are invited to attend A Moment of Silence for the Shuhada' of Iraq. The performance begins at sunrise and concludes at sunset on the winter solstice, December 22, 2007, in Serjilla, a Dead City in Northern Syria. Tickets are free of charge, and reservations are not required.

a moment of silence

We take a moment of silence in homage to the deceased. It is a formal, public ritual that we perform for the dead and for ourselves. Traditionally, a "moment" contains sixty seconds, and "the deceased" refers to one person or to a group of people.

The subjects of this moment of silence are those who have lost their lives in Iraq due to the 2003 American invasion and subsequent civil war. The number of deaths to date ranges from under 100,000 to over 1.2 million.

In the wake of this ongoing indeterminate human loss, a moment of silence, whose very meaning rests on a quantifiable relationship between time and death, feels absurd.

And yet the ritual of silence is necessary.

This piece is a performance of silence whose shape and depth consider the indefinite magnitude of the tragedy. It is a gesture in homage to the shuhada' of Iraq.

shuhada'

Shuhada' is the transliteration of an Arabic word that literally means "witnesses." The word is also used to mean "martyrs," "those killed in battle with infidels," and "those killed in action." In the contemporary Arabic context, the term is used more broadly in reference to those whose lives were taken by acts of war whether or not they were active or passive participants in the event.

The term is often translated into English as "martyrs."

However, this translation is problematic. A martyr dies or is killed because of his or her faith, religion, or belief, and the idea of the "martyr" contains a causality between religion and death. The translation reduces the meaning of shuhada' to a religious context whereas I am interested in its contemporary, secular meaning, especially in reference to the passive participants of war.

Because the English language lacks such specificity, I opted to transliterate the word.

serjilla

Deserted some 1500 years ago, Serjilla is one of roughly 700 desolate Byzantine towns in Northern Syria collectively known as the Dead Cities. The circumstances, causes, and nature of the mass abandonment of this once flourishing region remain unknown.

Find out the directions here, and contact the performer here.

Be there!

Supporting Waseem Salahi Versus Hart Administration

2007-12-15T09:42:00.000+02:00

Update: My blog was mentioned by someone who started a topic on the Signal forum under:

Waseem Salahi Article used for Middle East Propaganda - See

I here will reply to the notes he mentioned about me leaving space to Yaman and Waseem to reply in their own words to his attacks even though I think they're not even challenging.

The fellow posted this line:

"a blogger has used Waseem's story to editorialize against "censorship" in the United States."

Well you can't actually call two-paragraphs introduction as editorializing, can you? I am merely a supporter, so i am not sure how "propagandist" a supporter can be! I mean you haven't even checked my "propagandist" blog: I, and very recently, have posted several posts on censorship in my country Syria; all you have to do is scroll down and check my recent posts: I have reported, posted and was interviewed about censorship in my country and now I am organizing with fellow bloggers and friends an event against internet censorship. So i dont "use" people's articles to blog on censorship, i "blog" on censorship.

As long as freedom of speech is abused, I am going to be blogging about it, regardless where this abuse is located.

And let's say I am "editorializing against censorship in the United States" in my introductory paragraphs, you mean I shouldn’t? for I am from the middle east? Why my ethnic origin is of interest to you? Would my two paragraphs be read differently by you if I am an American? that I wouldnt be a "propagandist"?

I think your problem with me and with the Salahis is that you don’t deal with "texts" as much as you deal with the "authors" of these texts labeling them according to their ethnical background. Hence I don’t think you are capable of reading "any" text whatsoever since they don’t exist to you in the first place.

I do not know what to say to a guy who thinks the mere act of "republishing" a post as a propaganda!? but i guess to a racist like you, "any" thing happens in the middle east and by middle easterns has to be propagandist.

And about this question of yours:

"I ask you Mr Waseem Salahi, "What is the connection between your brother, and this blogger? "

I am afraid your logic is amazingly ridiculous, are you saying, that the mere support of people could be motivated by a "connection"?
Does this mean, that my support of the jailed Egyptian blogger, Kareem Suleiman, is motivated by a "connection" with him? or that my support of the Syrian blogger Rukana Hammour against the Syrian intelligence is motivated by a "connection" with her?

I think you are simply a causeless person whose attacks and support are merely motivated by personal racist triggers.

I couldn’t agree more with what Yaman and Waseem had to say to this guy:

Yaman's comment:

While I appreciate your interest in this, if it can be given that name, I have to say some of the allegations and "concerns" you've raised are absurd. Your accusations that Waseem's article is "Middle East Propaganda" is pathetic and desperate, considering that you only used it in your subject line to get attention and then did not even follow up on the claim. So what if people around the world are reading this story? Don't you see international stories when you watch Fox News? To make things clear, I did not post about this anywhere but my blog, which is published under the CreativeCommons license, so folks are allowed to reproduce my posts wherever they like.

That tidbit aside, yes, I stand by my statement that a request for substantial, content-based changes amounts to censorship. Imagine if the Mayor of Santa Clarita requested to read all stories concerning the city government before they were published, and then requested that small "changes" be made to improve his image. Of course, those in office would try to "change" anything that made them look bad. But what that kind of change actually entails is replacing critical content with neutral or positive content. It is absolutely a form of censorship, especially when the censors are interested parties who, given their reaction to this ordeal, are rather embarrassed by the fact that they got attention beyond Hart campus, and probably never would have tried to do this had they known that those were the consequences of their actions.

As for the potential of causing conflict on campus--now that the article has been distributed around campus, and we can look at it retrospectively, was their a riot? Was there violence? Did Hart High School go down in flames with the distribution of the article? Did Santa Clarita go down in flames when The Signal printed the editorial? No--people are not as stupid as you'd like to think. The claim that someone's idea is too "dangerous" to be discussed freely has always been the refuge of dictators from Syria to Jordan to Libya to Algeria to Saudi Arabia etc who have nothing but power to back themselves up.

Maybe you disagree with Waseem's article or tone, and that's why you're angry that The Signal published it. But if that's the case, you would look a lot more reasonable if you actually responded to the merits of his article, to the substance of his claims, rather than cast all these vague accusations that he's a "Middle East" propagandist or that he "craves and desires the publicity." I suppose the fact that you said absolutely nothing at all about his article reflects poorly on you and it definitely brings the intentions of your post into question--are you friends with one of the Hart administrators?

Waseem's comment:

Well, let's first start off by saying I'm a little creeped out by the amount of time and effort you put in to make a loose connection between my editorial and Middle Eastern propaganda.

Before you ask me any questions, please, in quotations, point out the specific parts of my editorial or my issue of the Smoked Signal that somehow implicates that I am publishing a piece of Middle Eastern propaganda? See, that's where the problem starts. You can't.

Simply because my article was supported in blogs doesn't mean I have any association with them. It's like claiming that The Signal is promoting Middle Eastern propaganda because their publication of my article was republished in Middle Eastern blogs. Pretty ignorant, eh?

If, however, you are implicating that somehow, by the mere fact of me being Middle Eastern that my words are therefore propaganda, then I would appreciate an apology from your blatantly racist and unnecessary remarks. Maybe you should reread my editorial, and then you'll get an idea that you're one of the catalysts that causes the division to occur in society.

Does that make you feel good about yourself, Mr. Petz? Do you get a feeling of accomplishment there?

----------------------------

I have read Waseem's piece and I am really astonished by the high school administration's decision to censor his article. Instead of supporting a student, who raises questions and challenges policies I think reconsidering them, as Yaman said, can only be in favor for the welfare of the campus community and to Santa Clarita Valley's community as well, Salahi was deprived to have his say! I cannot see how an educational institution i.e. a school, that is all about teaching students in classrooms to question and challenge their teachers, to argue with and against a certain topic in their papers, and to come up with problematic counter arguments, is itself censoring a "divisive" argument!

One thing that caught my eye in Waseem's piece is his argument on social, economical and political exclusion. Here in this region, Syria and Lebanon, people "assume" that the US is a cosmopolitan society, a multicultural community, I remember I was arguing against that in Balamand based on how America's media agencies and industries represent themselves; they don’t mention Mexicans unless if they're poor, don’t mention Blacks unless they're "violent", don't mention Asians unless they're mafias, and needless to say, they don’t show Arabs unless they're "terrorists". The American reporter, actress and journalist, is exclusively White, and when she/he isn’t white, she is a hyphenated White as in a White-Black. Americanism becomes "White". Indeed there are multi communities and multi cultures in the United States, but they are segregated and not integrated. I might be wrong, but I find Waseem's piece highlighting one of the reasons why America is a segregated society.

Below I republish Waseem's brother, Yaman Salahi's detailed post on Waseem's case as a support to Waseem Salahi versus Hart High School Administration.

Taken from Yaman Salahi

Censorship and Exclusion at Hart High School: Community divisions in Santa Clarita

My younger brother Waseem Salahi is a Co-Editor-in-Chief of his high school’s newspaper, “The Smoke Signal.” As is standard with almost all high school newspapers, the administration “reviews” the paper before it goes to press every month. This month, the administration called Waseem into the office 1-2 hours before deadline, where he was met by the principal and three vice principals. The administration made it clear to him that the article needed to be “changed,” ostensibly to avoid creating “division” on campus. However, while Waseem was talking to administrators, the journalism adviser told students to replace the article with an advertisement, and the publication was sent to press while Waseem was still arguing with the administration.

The administration denies that this was an act of censorship, and instead claims that it merely wanted “changes” to be made to the article–however, according to my brother, the requests for changes were not merely regarding wording, but had to do with content and substance. Before I discuss the actual article, which expresses criticisms of the administration and the school’s Associated Students Body, I think it’s important to say this clearly: even a request for “changes” amounts to censorship. Even worse, the school administration may have broken the law in trying to enforce those requests.

In California, high school administrators do not have the right of prior restraint (that is, the right to prevent speech before it actually happens) for any student publications, even ones that are officially recognized and funded by the school in question. As far back as 1977, California has protected students’ rights in this respect in Section 49807 of the CA Education Code, which states:

“There shall be no prior restraint of material prepared for official school publications except insofar as it violates this section.”

Violations are enumerated in the following way:

…expression shall be prohibited which is obscene, libelous, or slanderous. Also prohibited shall be material which so incites students as to create a clear and present danger of the commission of unlawful acts on school premises or the violation of lawful school regulations, or the substantial disruption of the orderly operation of the school.

To put it in other words, high school administrators in California only have the right to block or modify student publications if they are either:

(1) obscene
(2) untrue (libelous or slanderous)
or
(3) create a “clear and present danger” on campus

Merely creating controversy does not fall into any of these categories. According to my understanding, the concern that administrators voiced throughout this entire ordeal was that the article in question would be “divisive.” They did not say it would start riots, they did not say it was factually incorrect, and they did not claim it was obscene. They said, in essence, that it was too controversial to print–but it is more likely that it was stopped because it was critical of the high school administration as well as the ASB. Furthermore, according to this advisory by the California Department of Education in 1988, before censoring material prior to publication, school officials

…must notify the student and give specific reasons why the submitted material may not be published. Absent extraordinary circumstances, such notice should be given in sufficient time to allow the student to either modify the material (particularly where the problem is journalistic) or to seek review of the school official’s determination at the school district level.

Two hours before the deadline does not seem like a reasonable amount of time to allow anybody either to significantly modify an article or to challenge the administration’s decision at a higher level.

At this point, I couldn’t be more proud of Waseem, who responded to this brazen act of interference by the administration in the smartest way possible: by contacting bigger press and also self-publishing and distributing the article on campus himself. One Santa Clarita community paper, The Signal, printed a front page story about this issue, as well as the full text of Waseem’s censored editorial in solidarity.

This morning, once the coverage in The Signal was out, Waseem was called into the office for a meeting with the school’s administrators, to which my mother was asked to come. According to my brother, the administrators expressed their disappointment that he had reacted in this way, and that given this reaction, they were “re-considering” whether he was responsible enough to continue in his position as Editor-in-Chief of the school’s paper. They also requested that he not distribute the copies of the article which he had printed himself, which are imaged to the side and which can be downloaded by clicking here. Of course, the administration here is mainly annoyed that it has been embarrassed because–the horror–somebody actually talked about the censorship itself. That’s the funny thing about censorship, it seems: it only works if nobody knows about it. Not only does the administration want to censor the original article, but it wants to censor anything that might be said about that initial act of censorship. Looks like a slippery slope to me.

Nevertheless, Waseem has been met with strong support from students on campus, as well as teachers, counselors, and campus supervisors. Whether the administration will threaten his position as Editor-in-Chief remains to be seen, but removing him either because of the original article, or because of the fact that he distributed it independently, is almost certainly against California state law. High school students in California have the right to distribute any publication or printed material on campus that they desire, even without the school’s endorsement or permission, as long as it does not violate any of the conditions above.

Of course, this story would not have been an issue if it weren’t for the subject-matter of Waseem’s article. He touched on a few things which really should not be news to anyone; all it takes is a stroll around campus to see the segregation on Hart’s campus. Everybody is well aware of it. Waseem’s article made the simple point that the campus community was not as unified or inclusive as the administration and the ASB like to think because:

(1) The high costs of participation in most school activities by default excludes those whose families are either unwilling or unable to pay (Waseem cites the number $2,910 as the estimated cost of participation in all senior activities–to put this number into perspective, the poverty threshold for a family of four in 2006 was found to be $20,444. That is almost 15% of a full year of income for a family living at the poverty line, or the cost of living for 2 months)
(2) That a sense of “belonging” and involvement of different communities on campus could be measured simply by looking at the ASB, which is incredibly unrepresentative of the student body as a whole (Even if there are no rules which lead to this lack of representation, there must be something else which makes certain communities feel that their participation in this institution is unwanted or unappreciated)
(3) That division exists not only racially, but academically as students are split between the “intellectual elite” and “midkids,” and linguistically between English and non-English speaking classrooms

This situation is not unique to Hart High School, but is actually a fairly common phenomenon for any school which serves a community so economically and ethnically diverse. The more serious thing to consider here is not the division on Hart’s campus, which is obvious enough at face value; but, rather, to consider the idea that perhaps the problems on Hart’s campus are emblematic of a wider problem in the Santa Clarita Valley. Things certainly are not dandy and, even if they are quiet at the present, they have not always been, and will not always be. Eventually, these divisions will surface again, and next time they may not be in the form of a high school editorial. Instead of tucking the serious issues away, as Hart’s administration has tried to do, perhaps it is time not only for a campus dialog but a community dialog about the real and perceived disenfranchisement and exclusion of Santa Clarita’s minority and low-income communities.

There are two ways for the administration to save face at this point. One is to pay serious attention to the issues raised in Waseem’s article and to figure out a way of involving students, faculty, and other community members in a community dialogue on how the issues can be addressed. The second is for it to reflect a bit on the way it deals with students and student activities, including student publications. There is clearly something wrong with an administration that tries to ignore a problem rather than confront it. Worse, this is not the only story of censorship I’ve heard regarding the school paper–I remember at least one incident during my freshman year when, after the paper had already been printed, students were forced to tear a specific article out of every printed copy because it was critical of the administration’s use of funds to renovate the school quad. I also received the following message today from one former Editor-in-Chief of the same school paper:

As a former EIC of “The Smoke Signal” I sympathize with Waseem’s plight. The administration has always actively worked to stifle the newspaper. We had several uphill battles against Fuller that always resulted in censorship. I hoped those days would end with Fuller gone but guess not.

There are probably countless other experiences to report. If this is how those who are most involved in the student body feel when they reflect about their experience in interacting with school administrators at Hart, then something is wrong. It is up to students and faculty at Hart, now, to make sure that they pressure the administration to modify its behavior and attitude towards the student body. After all, students, it’s your school. Not the administration’s.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and the legal information above should not be taken as legal advice.

Update: It looks like new media is in on the revolution as well. SCVTalk.com has a summary of the ordeal, and this anonymous blogger has written about it as well.

Yaman added a comment beneath his blog post:

I should probably add that I never used my time at Hart to do something cool like this. The brief couple of months that I joined journalism, I think I wrote an article about ketchup. I’m not joking. The closest I ever got was when an administrator called me into the office because some people were offended that a public announcement for an Amnesty International meeting referred to Guantanamo Bay prison as “unconstitutional.”

Interview on Syrian Internet Censorship

2007-12-01T23:04:00.001+02:00

Below is the full text interview conducted with me by Najad Abdullahi, I believe it reflects on Syrian censorship better than his report:

Najad: It's very hard finding official counts on just how many sites are blocked in Syria, but from what I have found out, the most popular means of expressing one's opinion is Blogger and Facebook (to some degree)
What I mean from opinion, can either be on political or social issues.
1. Can you direct me to perhaps a site or statistic that show how many websites are blocked in Syria.

Me: Actually Blogger compared to Maktub isn’t popular at all; there are 30 or 40 Syrian bloggers on Blogger whom are mostly inactive because of the blockage, hence most of the active bloggers on the site are Syrian expats. The popular blog hosting website among the Syrian bloggers and I think among Arab bloggers in general would be Maktub. There are almost 2484 Syrian blogs on Maktub only. Part of Maktub's popularity is that it's in Arabic and second it is unblocked.

It is worth noting that the reason for blocking Blogger is not because it promotes political or social views, it depends really "who" is promoting these thoughts. For example, a human rights activist Rukana Hammour who blogs on Maktub has written detailed posts on how the security forces in Syria detained her and harassed her yet Maktub is not blocked, whereas Blogger is blocked and for a very serious reason; a former member of National Salvation party which is considered a traitor party in Syria used to blog on Blogger.

You can find an updated list on how many websites are blocked in Syria on this online petition against Syrian censorship:

http://abssyria.freewebpage.org/

Najad: Also, from what I've read, there is a new establishment, named the Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology.
I hear the opening of this ministry came as a surprise to many people in the media industry there, is that true??
The Ministry of Information is has been around as a government institution for quite some time,

Me: I am not sure if the new "establishment" of the ministry itself is what caused a huge problem in the media industry but rather the new "policy" it has been practicing even since it's been created. Websites' owners are asked to be spies on their own readers when asking them to write their full names and submitting their emails when commenting. Some websites publish articles written by anonymous readers of their websites and according to the Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology's circular on the 7th of July 2007, this is no longer acceptable; websites owners should demand the articles' authors to write their full names clearly or the sites will be temporally closed for violiting the circular and permanently closed if they continue to violate it. So you can imagine the shock of this policy.

Najad: Also, I have read that the reason many websites are being blocked is that the ministry demands that those who publish their comments, put down their real names.
Now, what do you think of this?
Is this a reasonable request, or do you, as a blogger yourself, see that as dangerous?

Me: I believe that behind every act of censorship and human rights abuse lies a bigger fear and minor trigger to justify that fear. If you checked the blocked sites you would notice that most of these sites are opposition sites, human rights sites and Kurdish sites. The reason of their blockage is their very discontenting content. Minor issues like disfavored comments by readers are only the excuse for censoring these sites altogether.

The ministry's circular is not only unreasonable and reflects a paranoid military mentality but also it is unconstitutional: according to the Syrian constitution the item 32 clearly defends the "the confidentiality of postal correspondence and telecommunications," So that means I have the right to appear anonymously.

This circular cannot affect me, I blog under a pseudonym and I publish comments on blogs using a hidden e-mail and the same pseudonym, I don’t think the circular itself is dangerous as the mentality behind it. The Syrian authorities should stop treating the Syrian people as inferior citizens who don't have the advantage of "choosing" to view a site or to seek information since we are already given the list of "friendly" sites and a "favored" information. What bothers me is that we are not treated as peers with the government, as if we cannot rightly judge what's good and what's bad for us, who is an "enemy" and who is a "friend". It is not only about censoring thoughts and freedom of speech but we people, Syrian people, are considered by our government as inferior minds who cannot build a reasonable judgment if given freedom. We demand to be partners to build this nation together; we cannot defend Syria from enemies if we are considered incompetents to defend the nation.

Najad: This request is virtually impossible to enforce, though, because from what I've noticed, there are hundreds of thousands of people in Syria who use pseudonyms.

Me:The Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology's demand to publish real name on websites is ridiculous. One can still write any name and submit an invalid e-mail and post the comment. I mean technically, this demand reflects how ignorant the censors are; they have no idea how publishing a comment works! So yes you're right, people continue to write anonymously. But, what has changed is that the circular has authorized detaining and arresting online commenters if their comments are disfavored by the government. And indeed, people are now getting arrested and detained when writing their full names online expressing critical views of Syrian governments' internal policy. The late human rights watch report (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/10/08/syria17024.htm) about human rights condition in Syria reveals that two persons, Karim ‘Arbaji (29) and Tarek Biasi (22) whom were recently arrested in June 2007 by Syrian Military Intelligence, are both being held in incommunicado detention for expressing critical views of the Syrian government. Rukana Hammour too, a Syrian blogger, was threatened by the Syrian Military Intelligence to withdraw her nomination to the Syrian Parliament election last year for her posts constantly reveals the corruption of the Syrian judicial system.

Najad: What I don't understand, is that the government claims that this demands of the identiy of online users, will protect 'against spreading lies about the country and government'.
What has a person's name got to do about lies?
Isn't what the person wrote that would count the most?
And also, what the person wrote, on an online medium should not be the responsibility of the government to monitor, because after all, it is an opinion coming from a PERSON - not a media establishment, or an institution, that has to be careful about comments, and allegations.
Can I get your thoughts on this?

Me: Precisely, that's why I think the intention: protecting the nation "against spreading lies about the country and government" is not sincere, their intention is clear; we want the names of those who speak against us, period, and we want the websites' owners to be our intelligence collectors.

Najad: I want to ask you what you think the difference is between Censorship in Egypt, and censorship in Syria?
Media in Egypt has been a focus for quite some time, do you think more attention should be bought to Syria?

Me: Unfortunately I don’t know much about censorship in Egypt, I know bloggers are constantly arrested for expressing views against religion and against the government, some have been recently released but Kareem Suleiman is still in jail. The Egyptian government, which is supported by the so-called democratic US, claims its support to democracy and freedom of speech yet is using the same censorship policy of the so called "axis of evil" Syria, I don’t see much difference here; the three administrations are tyrannical regimes.

I am not sure too how the media in Egypt is at focus, but we in Syria certainly need a lot of that, actually we need to change our definition of "media" structurally. Syrian formal media agencies do not reflect exactly what's going on in Syria, that's why many Syrians don’t check Syrian formal news agencies but Lebanese channels/newspapers and independent Syrian news websites. I think once our media trust the mind of the Syrian citizens and the right to for her/him to know what's going on in Syria, we would be solving a structural flaw in our understanding of the media itself.

Najad: I've spoken to people in Damascus explaining to me why the blockage were needed. They tell me that they censoring opinions/comments are related to security issues, namely aimed at those that choose to insult the Syrian government, and its foreing/domestic polciies.
Do you think this is a reasonable justification?

Me: Let us first agree on something, there is a difference between "deleting" a comment, and "censoring" it. There are two kinds of comments, spam comments; swearing words, hating words and insulting terms which I think are irrelevant to the article, post or news published hence deleting it is most likely justified, and the second kind of comments is opinion comments that actually reflect the reader response of the text and provide arguments and perspectives. It is irrelevant here if the comment agrees or not with the author of the text, I think as long as it provides a say it is an opinion and censoring it is never justified.

When we use the word "censorship" in our campaign against censorship we mean that our thoughts, opinions and freedom of speech are censored! How can censoring an opinion be justified? This argument is simply insulting our intelligence when accusing us of insulting rather than developing arguments critiquing domestic policies. Criticism is not a crime, criticism is necessary for the national process of progress, criticism is not an attack and certainly not an insult, it rather challenges the other point of view hoping that through a dialogue we get somewhere better. We are nobody's enemy; we share the same goal which is the welfare of Syrian people and Syria. We know that one of us can do without the other.

Many thanks to Yaman Salahi for editing this post.

Plagiarism All Over

2007-12-01T16:40:00.001+02:00

Update: I emailed the author of the article and he told me that Walid Saffour, the director of the Syrian Human Rights Committee, had told him by phone the words were taken from by post, and the author believes it is not plagiarism if Saffour hold "similar" views and it is not his problem. Well Saffour did not even bother to rephrase my words, he copied them exactly, so i wonder how "similar" an "exact copy" could be.

I mean wow I am really honored that the human rights committee had nothing to say but the exact damn words of mine on an interview, and I am really fine with the response of Najad, cause let's be "practical" about it: since when "all rights are reserved" in the Arab World?

After the post I wrote couple weeks ago on Facebook, a lot of desperate so called journalists/reporters and bloggers who have no idea what Facebook in Syria is and have no idea what censorship in Syria is, actually had the nerve to steal my thoughts and my argument even though it isn’t that much really except that it provided background, it opposes the Syrian government, and that it is written in English.

So my post was not just "there" to be a source on the censorship case of Facebook, but also a case to use it politically against the government, a matter I am finding hard to deal with lately: how I can oppose injustice without being used by pathetic people out there who just need a "word from the street" to use against "Syria"? I am really having a trouble dealing with that and frankly that's one reason I haven’t been blogging about censorship lately. I want to be clear for these readers who don’t know my political stand: whereas I "oppose" Syria's internal policy and I "question" the regime's motives to support Hezbolla and Hamas, I SUPPORT Hezbolla and Hamas' right to resist occupation! So don’t count on me so much on backing up your lousy game against the "axis of evil" Syria.

So let's look at some of those journalists:

First we have that Joshua, oh boy he's something, I mean I don’t take him seriously whatever he writes but I cannot really comprehend that fact that he's trying to write, oh no excuse me, to "analyze" Syria's international and domestic affairs when he cannot write a bloody post on Facebook!

After introducing us in couple lines to his topic of discussion on the 22nd. of the current month, this is his first paragraph:

"Facebook has become a virtual civil-society in Syria. Many civic groups sprung up over-night and became popular with thousands. Groups about preserving the old city, getting back the Golan Heights, supporting civil marriage, women's' groups, art associations, and you-name-it."

Does it ring a bell? on the 19th. my approach onto reading censoring Facebook was "merely" about the rising of civil society and activists and I have mentioned these exact group along with the two causes Free Golan and Saving Old Damascus:

FREE ANWAR BUNNI

Freedom for Michel Kilo

Syrian Gays Rights

لا .. لحجب مواقع الانترنت في سوريا

For Civil Marriage in Syria

Of course plagiarizers do not copy rightly cause they're not the owners of the "idea" but simply its imitators: he mixed up groups for causes and he wrongly reported that these groups are popular with thousands.

He continues with his two-paragraphs' report:

"They are only limited by the imaginations of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have been kept from forming such groups in non-virtual life."

Wait, doesn’t this look like this:

"Those who cannot be activists in a "real" Syria can be one in a virtual Syria."

Or maybe this is all a coincident.

Our next guy is actually a guy who has interviewed me but his unprofessionality caused to put my words under another person:

"There are no independent institutions in Syria – whether social, cultural or political," says Saffour.
"Syrians are now trying to represent themselves - and they were doing that through Facebook. Those who cannot be activists in the 'real' Syria, can be one in a virtual Syria."

This was actually taken from my post:

"There are no cultural institutions in Syria, no private independent NGOs, no civic institutions, who represent the populations except the government? Syrian Facebookers are trying now to represent themselves. Those who cannot be activists in a "real" Syria can be one in a virtual Syria."

I don’t understand this, these very people who supposed to represent the "voiceless" people who are already misrepresented by their local media and trying to reach out a "professional" and an independent media are either plagiarizers or lazy journalists? I love Al Jazeera and it will take a lot more that a lazy journalist to make me dislike her, but this is not how I like her to be.

Damn it, it was just a post!

Syrians Against Censored Syria

2007-11-19T14:22:00.000+02:00

Facebook is blocked in Syria, would I sound naïve if I said I didn’t see it coming? Why should I? How are the Syrians facebooking? Launching opposition campaigns? What's Facebook in Syria anyway? Active civil society? Syrian groups calling to overthrow the Syria regime? What's so dangerous about Syrian facebookers that they shouldn't be using it anymore? Or perhaps because the site is American so it should be blocked? Or maybe the Syrian officials have no idea what's Facebook except that it's an American and it's getting popular in Syria? All the above?

My theory? I think the Syrian officials don’t have a thorough idea how Syrians are facebooking, I think they did not block Facebook–the-site, but the unfamiliar reaction to this site, the unknown consequences of this reaction that might be very much, uncontrolled!

Even though I am not a big fan of this website but I along with some users learned how to use it to promote my projects. More than once I tried permanently to deactivate my account, but I always come back and always for a new different reason.

Ok so Ammar Abd El Hamid used to blog on Blogger, but he's not anymore god damn it! Youtube has opposition videos downloaded, opposition sites are opposition "no good" sites, Israel is the "enemy", but what's really the deal with Facebook? And how come Myspace, Hi5, Hi-Syria, and I don’t know what, aren’t blocked in Syria? Why just Facebook?

United Nations estimated the population in Syria year 2003 at 17,800,000. How many of those do we have on Facebook? It says that there are only 28,079 facebookers that affiliated to the "Syria" regional network. Of course there are many Syrian Facebookers who don’t affiliate with the Syrian regional network simply because they don’t live in Syria. So generally speaking those who affiliate to the Syrian network live in Syria at the moment. So out of millions we have only 28,079 Syrian Facebookers.

Compared to Syria, Lebanon which was estimated in 2003 by the United Nations at 3,653,000 has 150,966 facebooker users affiliated to its regional network.

Looks like Facebook isn’t popular in Syria as Hi5 or Hi-Syria , yet it is the first and only social website that was blocked in Syria. Again, why?

Let's take a look at the popular groups in Syria at its second day of the blockage:

أغلظ 100 شخصية في سوريا

الإعلان السوري .....إلى متى هذا الإنحطاط ؟؟؟

لمسة عشق على ارض دمشق

بحبك يا شام

أصابيع رجلين البنات عشقها الشباب _ Fingers feet

Anti-Shawi ~...Die Shawi Die!!!...~

Syrian Single Girls

لا لسجن سلطان الطرب

The Great Facebook Race – Syria

احلى النكت الحمصية

Very…dangerous I'd say! None of these groups are political or even close to demanding political or social change in Syria. So it must be not the majority's interests that concerns the Syrian officials but rather the minority's interests and activism in the site:

FREE ANWAR BUNNI

Freedom for Michel Kilo

Syrian Gays Rights

لا .. لحجب مواقع الانترنت في سوريا

For Civil Marriage in Syria

Facebook's events and groups are not just what's processing the Syrian people's awareness, but also its causes. For the past 40 years the Syrian officials are the only ones who can speak of Golan Heights, I once wanted to write my seminar and I asked for a map of Golan Heights but they told me I cannot for "security reasons". Ayman Haykal, a Syrian citizen and the father of the Syrian bloggers made an attempt to transfer the strictly formal representation of Golan Heights to people when he created the cause Free Golan. It's the people who make causes happen, not officials, and certainly not elected ones. Yaser Arafat died, but he wasn’t the cause, Palestine, Palestinians are, the Palestinian cause will always live as long as there are living Palestinians.

Another cause on Facebook is Saving Old Damascus, that is from Syrian Regime itself.

It is worth to note that a couple days ago Syrian Facebookers have launched a campaign to save a girl from a potential "honour" crime. Dania Sharif wrote the petition and addressed it to Syrian authorities to act and stop honour crimes in Syria. Not sure if this was the reason or not, but it could be.

These groups are not popular, not because their cases are not supported but their unpopularity stems from fear. Nevertheless, these political and unorthodox groups are not the reason of the blockage of the site, I think.

Who lives in Syria knows that it's the country of "nothing's going on" except to hang out in old Damascus' cafes, but recently there has been a cultural awakening; people are starting to organize their interests in concerts, galleries, conferences, plays, screenings…etc. and Facebook is facilitating the process which is very hard to do in an inactive militarily controlled society. There are no cultural institutions in Syria, no private independent NGOs, no civic institutions, who represent the populations except the government? Syrian Facebookers are trying now to represent themselves. Those who cannot be activists in a "real" Syria can be one in a virtual Syria. Facebook is becoming a tool to bring together these very individuals to promote their socially, religiously and politically prohibited thoughts. We are not talking about blocking of a social networking tool, we are talking about blocking an awareness networking tool, a chance to express, to finally speak and do something about it.

It's high time to demand our right to seek ALL and ANY information regardless of its source, we have the mind to decide for ourselves what we should/should not read or believe.

We have the right to organize ourselves and activate our numb citizenship. We want to be socially and politically active. We want to campaign for human rights, we want to be civilians instead of abstract "Syrians," instead of mere Muslims and Christians.

We want to engage in building our nation.

We don’t want to be permitted to act; we want to be voluntarily and spontaneously acting.

We want to be doers and actors.

We want Syria uncensored!

Sabbah: Desperate to Censorship Facebook!

2007-11-14T20:49:00.000+02:00

Taken From Sabbah

“You know you are doing well when Zionists and their alike are desperately trying to silence you.”

This is exactly what is happening to me on Facebook for two consecutive days now.

As you know, beside Sabbah’s Blog, I also run the aggregator, Palestine Blogs - The Gazette.

Yesterday I received an email from Facebook Team complaining about Palestine Blogs application which I created there few days ago. Following is a copy of Facebook email to me, which is self explanatory:

From: Facebook [developers -help+mmymw2yr@facebookmail.com]
Date: Nov 13, 2007 12:19 PM
Subject: User TOS report against Palestine Blogs - The Gazette
To: haitham.sabbah@gmail.com

Hi,

A Facebook user reported that your application Palestine Blogs - The Gazette violates our Terms of Use. The user reporting it selected Attacks individual or group as the violation. This person also said:

“blatantly Anti-Semitic. Attacks Jews and Israelis as Nazis, war criminals, legitimate suicide bombing targets, etc.”

Please investigate this issue.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

I replied back to Facebook Team explaining to them that the above is not true and gave them a brief description of the aggregator - Palestine Blogs, but the email bounced back because the sender email (Facebook’s) is configured to bounce emails sent to it. I looked around Facebook site to find a way to contact the ‘Team‘ but could not find a way to do that, so I gave up… At least I tried!

The story did not end there. Today I got a second email from Facebook again, and it was another complain, but this time regarding my blog application (Sabbah’s). The email below is self explanatory:

From: Facebook [developers -help+mmymw2yr@facebookmail.com]
Date: Nov 14, 2007 7:37 PM
Subject: User TOS report against Sabbah’s
To: haitham.sabbah@gmail.com

Hi,

A Facebook user reported that your application Sabbah’s violates our Terms of Use. The user reporting it selected Attacks individual or group as the violation. This person also said:

“Following my recent encounters with Sabbah on his blog, it is pure propaganda blog that silences everybody who disagree with the writer (I was silenced after posting very polite comments questioning a few posts). It is basically a one-man hosted hate group and i don’t think it has a place on platform such as Facebook. Thank you!”

Please investigate this issue.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Pathetic! They did not leave anything for chance and grouped all the sins in this world together. A “one-man hosted hate group, anti-Semitic, anti-Jews, anti-Israelis as Nazis, citing war criminals and legitimate suicide bombing targets.”

It looks like a systematic-desperate force trying to influence/scare Facebook to censorship what is published there. Of course this is not new around the web (check Steve’s post about the resent attempt to silence Google), and I’m sure it will never stop as long as we have Zionists spitting poison every way they go.

Anyway, if I disappear from Facebook, you know why!

To Syrian authorities: Stop a Potential Crime

2007-11-14T10:11:00.000+02:00

Created by Dania Shraif on Nov 13, 2007

Category: Justice

Region: Syria

Target: The Syrian government including Mr. president, Prime minister, the minister of justice.

Web site: Syrian Women

Description:

(R. M) Qab, 19, is too close to being killed by her brother, as he has publicly pledged to do in the name of “honor.” (R. M) is one of the two women whose stories we ran previously.

There’s been some developments in these cases over the past week. One of the young women finally married the man she loved and wanted to be with, and she was released from custody to go with him to an undisclosed location.

But the second woman is still detained, and now that her family has dropped the (fraudulent) theft charges they had brought against her, she is due to be released by law.

The problem is that even though her brother has publicly announced he will kill her to “reclaim the family’s honor,” the court plans to release her directly to her family. In other words, release her directly to the slaughter!

The acting judge, is in a difficult dilemma. On the one hand there’s the family with all its laden traditions alongside people in the local community pressuring him to release (R. M) to the family for them to carry out the slaughter that the brother is promising (the father does not condone it.) And on the other hand his own morality and sense of ethics as a judge disallow him to put in danger the life of a citizen. He knows very well that any guarantees her family give for her safety will be nothing beyond ink on paper. He knows well that she will be slaughtered. He has been indecisive on the matter.

Petition:
This petition will be sent to the Syrian government including Mr. president, Prime Minster, the minister of justice and all parts of the releasing decision to try to push them to take their responsibility in order to protect her life by sending her to a safe unknown place where she will be able to consume building her future and upcoming life instead of sending her to her slaughter family where she will be killed immediately.

We also call upon all individuals and organizations who work with human rights and the rights of women and a better future for humanity to get involved to protect (R. M).

Silence in this case is nothing less than condoning the slaughter of (R. M).

Sign the petition

The To Syrian authorities: Stop a Potential Crime petition to The Syrian government including Mr. president, Prime minister, the minister of justice was written by Dania Shraif and is hosted free of charge at GoPetition.

Text Message

2007-11-06T17:01:00.000+02:00

Just like in the movies, I woke up today expecting too much from people, expecting lots of kisses from mom and dad, but mama and baba didn't give a damn. They went to work as soon as they were done with their coffee. So I retreated to my laptop seeking love from my virtual friends whom gave me lots of it.

I dressed up, and went to see another Iranian film which happens to be deadly boring for it was Okayed by the Iranian government. Inside the cold hall, and while I was hoping for something to strike me in the movie, I received a text message from dad:

Hi razan be early tonight will celebrate ur birthday out happy birthday

I smiled, though it meant that there will be no hangover tomorrow morning, but I am glad my parents did give a damn after all, they usually celebrate indoors.

I was looking at my pictures when I was young, apparently I did not like cameras.

in the US

Latakya

in Damascus celebrating my 23 birhday, a hell of shyness.

but not always

KSA

damn it, i'm 27.

Blogger is Blocked in Syria

2007-11-01T23:19:00.000+02:00

One of the dear Syrian bloggers is currently visiting Syria, he is sharing his response of his visit by posting via his cell phone on his blog. Even though I don’t' share his reading on many issues like his reading of the economic changes or his reading of Syrian racism towards the Iraqi refugees as motivated by "ignorance", that's totally an interesting read, but he reported a piece of information that has been causing me pain ever since I got back to Syria and it troubles me to ignore the problem altogether when reporting Blogger is unblocked! Sorry dear Sasa, Blogger is very blocked.

Ayman, Amre, Abu Fares, Yaser, Sami and I have blogged about the blocking of Blogger in Syria, or else we would have been imagining ourselves going through these proxies in order to access our blogs and Syria Planet blogs for couple months for myself and years for the rest.

There are many servers in Syria, the official server, the governmental, which blocks not only Blogger, but also Youtube, Google Translator, Unblocker, Spam the Blog, Israeli sites and opposition sites.

I am not sure what server Sasa is using, he could be using one of the private servers whose policy isn't similar to that of the government's. Private servers no longer available for public because the lines were already limited and all sold out.

So who is "Syria" in "Blogger Blocked in Syria"? Is it the official server or the private server? The governor or the merchant? The one who can jail you if caught accessing opposition sites, or the one who doesn’t give damn whether it is a pornographic or an opposition site?

When we say that blogger is blocked in Syria we mean the Syrian officials consciously blocks sites that are critical of the Syrian government's internal policies. We mean that seeking and republishing the information is blocked in Syria. We mean that people get arrested if they play the "go around" game when accessing these sites and publish certain comments.

A friendly note to our dear blogger Sasa since this is the second time he wrongly reports on the unblocking of Blogspot in Syria, we wish Blogger was unblocked, but the truth is, it's not even close.

If anything is unblocked in Syria, it's the bloggers' will to blog.

Syria: End Repression of Human Rights Activists!

2007-11-01T11:24:00.000+03:00

I have known Mustafa for sometime now, it was a strange meeting, yet our interests in human rights, woman rights and minorities' rights made us good friends. Mustafa is the kind whom you listen to when he speaks, though he has some firm facial features, but that cannot hide the humane, the kind and the shy man behind, especially when he smiles.
I remember the first time we met, he, his lovely girlfriend and friends, sang for hours in a Damascene night at the roof of their house. We sang Ziad and Sami' Shqir's songs, we sang for the dream of liberty, for the dream to be allowed to act, to be Syrians.
Though Mustafa is young, he is one of the striking Syrians I've met in my life. He is always busy attending conferences, researching for human rights, and writing reports on human rights magazines. He's the citizen.
For a citizen, for the citizens that are forgotten in their lonely and dark cells, for Damascus Spring's prisoners of conscience, for every Syrian who chose to live the hard way, I raise my voice and ask Syria, Syrians and you, to support these citizens' right to breath: End Repression of human rights activists!

I publish below Mustafa's own words of his case---please republish.

Dear Sir \ Madam,

Although the Syrian constitution protects the rights to freedom of movement, association and expression, the government has used emergency powers and restrictive legislation to stifle the activists’ exercise of their most basic rights. Government authorities also rely on the continuing state of emergency to adopt arbitrary measures to silence their critics and to prohibit them from operating as a legally recognized group. The government has relied on these laws to override constitutional guarantees and to establish itself as the sole arbiter of with whom and how Syrians can express, associate, and travel. Syrian authorities routinely use travel bans as punishment for activists and dissidents. The use of such bans expanded dramatically in 2006 and 2007 to include a lot of youth.

I was traveling from Damascus to Amman, Jordan, on July 30, 2007, to attend the course: Leadership towards the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women organized by the United Nations University and the International Leadership Institute. Syrian security forces at the border prevented me from leaving the country. They did not explain the reason for the travel ban but indicated that the Political Security Agency (Aleppo branch) had issued the order and that I had to report to them. Such restrictions constitute a violation of my right to freedom of movement and an undue interference with my rights to freedom of expression and association. For a few months before, Security services exercised pressures on me and my family.

I registered a case in front of the Administration court, which looks in government-related cases. I do not expect a positive result because of the continuing state of emergency.

Under international law, everyone is free to leave his or her country. The International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights bars states from restricting someone’s right to leave the country, except when the given restrictions are prescribed by law and are “necessary to protect national security, public order, public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others,” and are consistent with the other rights recognized in that treaty. Syrian security agents have issued travel bans in Syria without any explanation and without any judicial basis.

Syria has obligations under several international treaties to uphold these rights, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Syria ratified the ICCPR on March 23, 1976, and the ICESCR on January 3, 1976.

The UN secretary-general’s special representative on human rights defenders, Hina Jilani, expressed concern in her March 2006 report about the lack of freedom of assembly and freedom of movement for defenders in Syria, in particular with respect to their participation in seminars and workshops abroad on human rights issues. (see http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/4session/docs/A-HRC-4-37.doc)

(To know more about the End Repression of Human Rights Groups in Syria, read HRW report on this link: http://hrw.org/reports/2007/syria1007/ )

I have "No Room to Breath", so I need your support by taking an action.

Best regards,

Mustafa Haid

Executive Board Member

Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies

Syria

The Clothesline Project: "No more dirty laundry!"

2007-10-31T16:23:00.001+03:00

click on image for more information

Event: The Clothesline Project "No more dirty laundry!"

ExhibitHost: http://www.kafa.org.lb/ & http://www.lsfm.net/

When: Monday, November 5 at 1:00pm

Where: West Hall, AUB

A Letter to Mr. Saniora from a Lebanese Citizen

2007-10-27T20:52:00.000+03:00

Tamara Keblaoui's first visit to Nahr el Bared camp today has triggered her to write a letter to the Lebanese Prime Minister Mr. Sanyora. Tamara is a fourth year student at AUB, she studies business administration and she is a co-volunteers coordinator of Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign.

Dear Mr. Siniora,

I write to you as a Lebanese citizen with pressing concerns. Today, on the 27^th of October 2007 I, along with a group of ten AUB students, made the journey north to Nahr el Bared. We went there with the purpose of carrying out a clean-up campaign for the homes of returning refugees. What we found in these homes made our heads spin.

The houses we worked in were located in the so-called new camp. They were mostly villas with three or more bedrooms. Evidently, they were spaces that not so long ago housed large families. We found on the floors tiny Reebok shoes and dolls and toys. We found gardens and we found orange trees. But the little reebok shoes were torn and weathered, the dolls had disembodied heads and limbs, the gardens were not green and the orange trees did not bear oranges. We found mountains of rubble where there should have been refrigerators. We found harrowingly blank spaces, Mr. Siniora, where there should have been stoves, tables, beds and sofas. We found that the walls of the children rooms were covered with anti-Palestinian slurs and imprecations so vile that I cannot reproduce them on paper. When we were at the gates of the camp, we were told that cameras would not be allowed into the camp and we were searched scrupulously for them. I did not understand why this was at first, but now I do, because now I am feeling disillusioned and angry and I know that had the rest of the world seen the images that my peers and I saw today, the rest of the world would feel disillusioned and angry, too.

Mr. Siniora, I would like to know why it is that mass looting and mass vandalism has been allowed to take place under the nose of an army that the country has for the last four months uniformly rallied behind. I would like to know this because I was one of the millions who stood in Martyr’s square on the 14^th of March 2005 calling for a sovereign, democratic Lebanon. I was one of the millions who demanded democracy, and democracy as I know it means that all those that are under the rule of government be treated equally and fairly. What my peers and I have witnessed today defeats that very notion. The Palestinians of Nahr el Bared--that we who claim to be democratic have the responsibility to protect--have been stripped of their wealth and, more importantly, their dignity for something that they were never responsible for. And you, Mr. Siniora, were the first to say this. What happened to the Palestinian-Lebanese brotherhood that you championed in your letter to the Palestinian community on the first week of the Nahr El Bared impasse? What happened to democracy? I did not see any of it today and I am deeply disheartened. I am disheartened because I truly believed we would become a democracy on the 14^th of March, 2005 when a nation was supposed to have been born. But mostly I am disheartened because the beyond palpable oppression of the Palestinian community has been done in my name, as a Lebanese citizen.

Mr. Siniora, this is not an attack on the government or on the army. To me, the war in Nahr el Bared is a nebulous haze; its onset, its protracted ending and everything in between raises many questions in my head and I will not broach the topic. What I know is what I saw today and it has disturbed me beyond belief. Thus, I ask you to look into the current treatment of refugees and end the oppression. I ask that you bring to us the democracy that you have promised.

Sincerely,Tamara Keblaoui

Syrian Blogger Rukana Hammour Kidnapped!

2007-10-26T20:13:00.000+03:00

Update 1: Sami has just informed us that Rukana Hammour has been released after three hours of her kidnapping and that she was interrogated by the Syrian Security Services over a comment left on her blog. We are happy to learn she is safe and sound at home among her family.

Update 2: read Rukana's detailed post (AR) on her kidnapping and investigation here.

Yesterday I received a mail from a human rights NGO in Syria saying that Rukana Hammour has been kidnapped on the 25th. of October by six Syrian security agents at her home and again, in front of her three children.

For those who are not familiar with her case, she is the daughter of Mohammad Hammour, the deputy of Saudi Air Lines, and whose fortune disappearance appears to be suspicious. Rukana was threatened by her brothers and high ranking Syrian officials and officers to be sexually assaulted and raped if she doesn't give up her share of her father's fortune and be silent about its suspicious evaporation.

Rukana sent several letters to King Abdalla's office to expose the robbery and thievery of her father's money. As a reaction, the thieves, and for the second time, kidnapped her, threatened her demanding her withdrawal from the parliament election, and constantly putting her life in danger.

Up to this moment we do not know the whereabouts of Rukana.

Syrian bloggers, I ask you all to support this woman, these citizens, if it's not for her children then let it be for "Syria"!

Spread the word!

For more information please read the mail i received on Global Voices here.
For more informations on her case please click here.