Egyptian writer Belal Fadl described it right when he said yesterday in his twitter account that no one knew how brave those who participated in these protests across Syria were except who really knew Syria.
With my all respect to all the revolutions and uprisings in Tunisia , Egypt , Yemen, Bahrain and Libya , Syria had seen what is happening in Libya before when Hafez Al Assad ordered his air forces to crack down the Muslim brotherhood in Hama killing thousands of civilians. It is no wonder that his son is helping Qaddafi !!
The March 15 in Syria can be our January 25 , do not underestimate it. If our dear Syrian brothers and sisters managed to protest till Friday , till the Friday prayers it will be a great triumph. Yesterday sources in Syria speak that not less 300 were arrested during and after the protests.
Still despite these arrests the activists did not give up and decided to protest earlier today in front of the ministry of interior itself , yes the ministry of interior demanding the release of the detainees in a very daring step. The families of the detainees joined them already and that means we are speaking about old ladies , young ladies and children.Here is the only photo I found on the right.
Of course again the brave protesters were chased ,beaten and badly injured by the security forces including children and elderly. Some have been detained already. There are 36 detainees who were being identified ,here are their names in both Arabic and English. one of them is a 10 years old child whose mother is a political detainee and another one is a pregnant lady who was released from a while ago because of her pregnancy !!
Here is a testimony from someone who has been to the protest today in Arabic. Also here is a testimony of activist and journalist Mazen Darwish who was detained and has been released from a while ago from the protest also in Arabic.The cameras and mobile phones were confiscated today. I do not know if the foreign media will be able to transfer what is going on now in Syria or not.
I do not know about other governorates in Syria other than Damascus but according to some accounts allegedly the army encircled certain areas in the north I believe at the Kurds’ populated areas. I will not be surprised if it was true.
For those who are praising Bashar Al Assad as the last knight of Pan Arabism , I would like to remind that he and allegedly Israel are helping Qaddafi in his war against his own people !! Please read this post.
The Syrian activists are calling for a stand tomorrow at 8 PM in Damascus at Ummayyad Mosque. I received a tweet that there will be a protest in the morning too in another part of Damascus but I am not sure of the time .
God bless them , bless the Bahrainis , the Yemenis and the Libyans.
With my all respect to all the revolutions and uprisings in Tunisia , Egypt , Yemen, Bahrain and Libya , Syria had seen what is happening in Libya before when Hafez Al Assad ordered his air forces to crack down the Muslim brotherhood in Hama killing thousands of civilians. It is no wonder that his son is helping Qaddafi !!The March 15 in Syria can be our January 25 , do not underestimate it. If our dear Syrian brothers and sisters managed to protest till Friday , till the Friday prayers it will be a great triumph. Yesterday sources in Syria speak that not less 300 were arrested during and after the protests.
Still despite these arrests the activists did not give up and decided to protest earlier today in front of the ministry of interior itself , yes the ministry of interior demanding the release of the detainees in a very daring step. The families of the detainees joined them already and that means we are speaking about old ladies , young ladies and children.Here is the only photo I found on the right.
Of course again the brave protesters were chased ,beaten and badly injured by the security forces including children and elderly. Some have been detained already. There are 36 detainees who were being identified ,here are their names in both Arabic and English. one of them is a 10 years old child whose mother is a political detainee and another one is a pregnant lady who was released from a while ago because of her pregnancy !!
Here is a testimony from someone who has been to the protest today in Arabic. Also here is a testimony of activist and journalist Mazen Darwish who was detained and has been released from a while ago from the protest also in Arabic.The cameras and mobile phones were confiscated today. I do not know if the foreign media will be able to transfer what is going on now in Syria or not.
I do not know about other governorates in Syria other than Damascus but according to some accounts allegedly the army encircled certain areas in the north I believe at the Kurds’ populated areas. I will not be surprised if it was true.
For those who are praising Bashar Al Assad as the last knight of Pan Arabism , I would like to remind that he and allegedly Israel are helping Qaddafi in his war against his own people !! Please read this post.
The Syrian activists are calling for a stand tomorrow at 8 PM in Damascus at Ummayyad Mosque. I received a tweet that there will be a protest in the morning too in another part of Damascus but I am not sure of the time .
God bless them , bless the Bahrainis , the Yemenis and the Libyans.
Technorati Tags: Citizen journalism,Syria,Politics,Ummayyad Mosque,Damascus,Bashar Al Assad,Human rights,revolution,#Jan25,MENA,Media
Even though Syria would not end up in uprising yet, it will happen sooner or later.
ReplyDeleteReason why I'm so confident is because of Egypt. If Egypt's media really become free, it's influence touches all Arab countries.
In free media there will be increasing criticism against everyone trying to suppress freedom, including other countries.
This poses a grave danger to Egypt. Can Egyptians resist the pressure from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries? They will certainly pressure to limit the media freedom in Egypt.
Syria has one of the worst histories in human rights. I hope the realy brave demonstrations remains all the time peacefull till the change happens.
ReplyDeleteif bashar is like his father then his brutality can be fierce.however as the brave tunisians brother said "iza el sha3b youman arad el 7ayat flabod an yastageeb el kadr"
Syrians put up with the assads for enough.
they have all that it takes to earn their freedom.
Freedom has to be earned. and they will earn it sooner or later isa.
The fear barrier will broken and this demonstrations will crack it down bit by bit.
I'm interested in hearing more about how Israel is helping Qaddafi against his own people.Do you have any reliable sources that you can direct me to?
ReplyDelete@Z "For those who are praising Bashar Al Assad as the last knight of Pan Arabism , I would like to remind that he and allegedly Israel are helping Qaddafi in his war against his own people !! Please read this post."
ReplyDeleteThe post you link to is full of crazy-pearls. It is a perfect example of dysfunctional political thought in the Arab world. Every political group -- left or right; Arab nationalist or West-aligned -- every single one employs the same implausible trope: If you are not with us then you are with Israel.
Artificially injecting Israel into every discussion prevents Arabs from recognizing and solving their problems, which have little to do with Israel. You yourself have fallen for this silly trope, Z, I am sorry to say, when you talk about Israel helping Gaddafi. It's absurd.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/03/gordon-duff-israel-intervenes-in-libya-for-gaddafi/
ReplyDeletehttp://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142228
ReplyDeleteAnd here are those two links enlivened. ISRAEL INTERVENES IN LIBYA…FOR GADDAFI! and Israel and Saudi ‘Allies’ Press Obama to Ease Off Mubarak. I just took a look at a comment on the first one:
ReplyDelete"Please, please send some Israeli IDF soldiers to Libya. Finally, the US soldiers will be fighting the real enemy that attacked them on 9/11. It will be GLORIOUS! If the US soldiers capture one of the IDF pigs, they need to send him to Gitmo to find out what he knows about the 9/11 false-flag."
Haha. Jews did 9/11 yada yada. I hope you're joking with these links.
Frankly, those are some ridiculous links - especially the first one.
ReplyDelete@Jason, I believe you missed the point of that post. My attempt was not to blame Israel or even inject it in anything. Israel, for us, is the benchmark for the things I described in that post. That's why I referred to it.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I was simply calling out the Baath party over its own hypocrisy. Oppressing the people in the name of security. I didn't say in the post that if the Baath party is not with the Syrian people then they're with Israel. I simply said that the Baath party is managing a police state that oppresses its own people much like Israel does to the Palestinians. Simply drawing lines of comparison.
The point I'm trying to make is precisely the opposite of what you referred to. We are sick of our rulers blaming everything on Israel. We are sick of missing our basic human rights and freedom because our rulers always claim that that is the price for keeping our countries safe from Israel. That rhetoric is our rulers' not ours, we are sick and tired of it and it's time we change it. I say we be strong, powerful and advanced...democratic and free...that's how we either face Israel or we make a just peace with it, not by tyranny and oppression.
Finally, those reports of Syria and Israel helping Qaddafi were never substantiated. It may be true or false, but so far there is no evidence of it whatsoever and simply falls along the lines of hearsay.
Thank you for the clear explanation, Khaled.
ReplyDeleteI can promise you that Israel IS MOST DEFINITELY NOT HELPING QUADDAFI. If you think it so, you must provide evidence. Otherwise you do a grave disservice not only to Israel, but to your readers and to the truth itself. You owe it to all that is good and true to prove such a statement.
ReplyDeleteYou will not be able to, I am certain.
Also, bravo to Khaled for this intelligent post and the reasoning that will finally free the Arab nations from the tyranny that is not only the men who robbed the people of their wealth, but also used Israel to spread lies and deflect the people from recognizing who the enemy really is.
ReplyDelete@Khaled, how is it possible to have a "just peace with Israel"?
ReplyDeleteJustice would require that Israel agree to abide by international law and the Geneva Conventions, something it literally cannot do without ceasing to exist.
Do you know that there is no such thing as "Israeli nationality"? In the Jewish state, one's nationality on the ID card is defined as "Jewish" or "Arab" or "Druze", etc. Despite being subject to the same taxes as Jewish citizens, those who are "Jewish nationals" are granted rights and privileges, such as renting or leasing property from the Jewish National Fund, World Zionist Organization or Jewish Agency (who together control about 93% of pre-1967 Palestine) that are denied to the other "nationals".
Israel's domestic laws specify Jewish identity as the preferred identity and give only Jews collective rights; in other words, only Jews are allowed to mobilize themselves politically and make group demands. Palestinians and other non-Jews have no such rights.
But at least they're acknowledged as citizens (even though Tzippi Livni and other Israeli officials have suggested that Arab citizens would be transferred by force to any Palestinian state). Another 30% of the population living under Israeli rule have NO rights at all, not even the right to life; certainly no property rights. Israel provides foreigners who are Jews with subsidized housing, automatic citizenship and army protection, while the legal Palestinian owners get home demolitions and terror.
Israeli legal and political scholars justify this by explaining that if Israel were to respect the rights of Palestinians, it would cease to exist!
Question: how can there be a "just peace" with a country that would cease to exist if it stopped violating the human and legal rights of its inhabitants?
Question: how can there be a "just peace" with a state that refuses to declare its borders and is committed to expanding its territory at the expense of its neighbors?
Question: how can there be a "just peace" with a state that is entirely built on continuous armed robbery and war crimes and crimes against humanity, which explicitly declares that any crime it commits, no matter how horrific, is ok if the criminals themselves call it "self-defense", and which maintains one of the largest nuclear, biological, chemical and conventional weapons arsenals on earth?
Was a "just peace" with apartheid South Africa possible? Was a "just peace" with Nazi Germany possible?
it's certainly sound impossible Alice..
ReplyDelete@Alice, that's why there was another option there. I said we either face Israel or we make a just peace with it. And when I say just I mean a peace that is not done on surrendering terms the way it transpired with Egypt and Jordan. I mean a peace where Israel doesn't necessarily have the upper hand in almost everything. A strong and democratic Arab world will either force Israel to change its ways or declare its end, and not necessarily by force, simply by deterrence. As you said, Israel would seize to exist if it stops violating international and human rights laws.
ReplyDeleteBut one thing remains important here. I will not point my finger at Israel and scream "bully" or "human rights violator" when my country does both to its own people. I fix myself and where I'm from first. Then I face the world with pride and righteousness on my side.