The Syria Monitor

Some Reactions to the Presidential Referendum

On Sunday May 27, the Syrian people were forced to vote in a referendum to renew Bashar Assad’s term as president for another seven years. There was no choice as Assad ran uncontested.

But just in case, Syrians were also subjected to the usual intimidation tactics. Students were reportedly threatened of being denied their final grades should they boycott the referendum. Many school principles forced students to participate in the rallies under threat of suspension. (Arabic. Free Syria, 5/29/07).

Even Syrians living abroad were intimidated into voting “yes,” as they did not want to face harassment upon visiting their families in Syria. Nevertheless, the opposition in exile did stage sit-ins and rallies to protest the referendum. (Arabic. Levant News, 5/26/07).

Dissident Maamoun Homsi dubbed the referendum illegal citing breaches such allowing voting without proper identification, allowing the votes of thousands of students below voting age, constant intimidation by the security services throughout the voting process, and canceling the secret ballot. He called on the international community not to recognize the result of the referendum and to consider Assad’s new term illegal. (Arabic. Aafaq, 5/29/07).

For his part, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni considered that Assad’s policies, including the recent targeting of opposition symbols, “have proven that the path of political reform is shut.” (Arabic. Levant News, 5/29/07).

Meanwhile, Bashir al-Sa’di of the Assyrian Democratic Organization called for an amendment of the constitution to allow non-Muslims to become president, adding that the current constitution, which states that the president must be Muslim, treats Christians as second-class citizens. He also called for the elimination of Article 8, which states that the Baath Party is the leader of the state and society and Article 84, which dictates that the president must be a member of the Baath. (Arabic. AKI, 5/29/07).    

Al-Sa’di added that the exaggerated festive spectacles suggest the continuation of the same old policies and the absence of any desire for reform.

Dissident al-Manna' Supports Referendum Boycott

The Syrian opposition with all its main elements will boycott the upcoming presidential referendum on May 27 that will give Bashar Assad a renewed seven year term.

Dissident activist and spokesman for the Arab Committee for Human Rights Haytham al-Manna' told AKI that this boycott is the position most in harmony with oneself, as far as Syrian democracy and human rights advocates are concerned. (Arabic. AKI, 5/24/07).

As to whether a boycott is the best way to send a message and make the voice of the democratic opposition heard, Manna' said, "I am personally against any presidential referendum, and I consider it to be a form of political fraud and deceit, conducted by the authoritarian regime to force citizens into being partners in the crime of violating free elections in broad daylight. It does not even rise to the level of the bay'a [the traditional political contract between ruler and ruled] known in Arab and Islamic history, nor is it remotely related to the idea of electing a president of the republic."

The Manna' also said that "all talk of reform have ended. Rule for rule's sake is the basic characteristic of the last seven years" of Bashar Assad's rule. He added, "does the Baath Party candidate accept that we, as human rights advocates, to be grilled on the track record of years past and our hopes for the future?"

Kilo and Issa Sentenced to Three Years

Dissidents Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa were sentenced today to three years in prison each for "weakening national sentiment, spreading false news, and inciting sectarian strife." (Arabic. Elaph, 5/13/07).

Two other dissidents, Suleiman Shammar and Khalil Hussein, who have been in hiding for months, were sentenced in absentia to ten years each; Five for weakening national sentiment, and five for inciting a foreign state to attack Syria.

The four dissidents, are signatories to the Beirut-Damascus Declaration, a joint document by hundreds of Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals calling for the rectification of bilateral relations through the respect of Lebanese sovereignty and independence, delineation of borders, exchange of embassies, and abiding by UN resolutions.

Kilo and Issa were arrested in May 2006 along with a number of other signatories to the declaration some of whom have since been released. Another signatory, Anwar Bunni, was sentenced on April 24 to five years. And with these verdicts, the Beirut-Damascus Declaration file was closed.

The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria (NOHR-S) condemned the sentence as politically motivated, since the charges have no legal standing. Dissidents in Syria were fearful that after the rough sentences against Bunni and Kamal Labwani, Kilo would also get a harsh sentence. (Arabic. Elaph, 5/11/07). Labwani was sentenced to twelve years on Thursday. The White House has condemned both sentences.

Six detained leading opposition figures warned earlier this month that the "repressive climate" in the country was worsening and called for the release of all political prisoners. (AFP, 5/1/07). The statement was published in the Lebanese daily An-Nahar on May 1 and signed by Kilo, Issa, Bunni, Labwani, Faeq al-Mir, and Aref Dalilah, who has been detained since 2001 and is serving a ten year term.

The six opposition figures called for "solidarity" with rights activists jailed in Syria, which has been under a state of emergency ever since the Baath party seized power in 1963.

"The Syrian people are paying a heavy price in order to obtain their rights, and we hope that we are the last payment of this expensive price in order for the Syrians to regain their freedoms," they said.

Labwani Sentenced to 12 Years

Dissident Kamal Labwani, head of the Liberal Democratic Gathering, was sentenced today to life in prison, commuted to 12 years with labor, for "inciting a foreign state to attack Syria." (Arabic. AKI, 5/10/07).

Labwani was arrested upon arrival at Damascus airport on 8 November 2005. He was returning from a trip to Europe and the USA where he met human rights organizations and government officials and called for democratic reform in Syria, including in an interview on al-Hurra.

Labwani, a physician, did not speak when the judge handed down the sentence, and only raised his fist in the air upon imposing sentencing. (AP. 5/10/07). "It is too much," whispered Labwani's wife, Samar, adding that the sentence was a political one.

This is the second time Labwani has been sentenced to jail. He was first sentenced to three years when the regime cracked down on the so-called "Damascus Spring" movement in 2001.

His sentencing follows another in recent days against Anwar al-Bunni, a human rights lawyer, who received a five-year prison sentence, signaling a continuing of a crackdown by authorities against dissent. (AI, 4/27/07). Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa, signatories of the Beirut-Damascus Declaration, will receive their sentence on Sunday.

Amnesty International had called for the release of Labwani, Kilo, Bunni and Issa in a recent statement. And the Syrian Human Rights Monitor commented on the sentence in a statement: "We consider the verdict to be political par excellence, especially since it was handed down while President Assad was addressing the new parliament, which reflects the worrisome direction that the Syrian authorities are pursuing against those who oppose them." (Arabic. Elaph, 5/10/07). Human Rights Watch also noted that "[f]rom the onset, Labwani’s trial was marred by the interference of the state security agencies." (HRW, 5/11/07).

Nadim Houri, a Syria researcher with Human Rights Watch, commented on the verdict saying, "The crackdown is continuing and there is really no sign of it abating. ... Clearly, Syrian authorities have no intention of opening up any space for political reform, and I think what we're seeing today is another symbol of the peaceful opposition to the Assad regime being punished for their views." He also urged the international community to stand up for Syrian activists. (AP. 5/10/07).

Another dissident, former MP Ma'moun Homsi, who has left Syria, had his assets seized by the regime, with the purpose of pressuring him and his family. Homsi had revealed in a recent interview on the liberal Arabic website Aafaq, that he had sent a letter to Sen. Nancy Pelosi asking her not to come to Damascus. (Arabic. Aafaq, 4/30/07).

Some dissidents in Syria are said to have linked the harsh sentence against Bunni to the recent Congressional visits to Damascus, which emboldened the regime to crack down even more.

“Syrian officials repeatedly claim that their country wants to play a constructive role in the region,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW. “But this is hard to believe as they continue to imprison peaceful dissidents at home.”  

Regime Seizes Homsi's Assets

The Syrian regime has seized the assets of dissident and former MP Ma'moun Homsi with the purpose of pressuring him and his family. (Arabic. Reuters, 5/3/07).

Homsi's lawyer Haitham al-Maleh said that the financial prosecution of Homsi has led to stripping the ownership of the house where his family lives, and seizing real estate and moneys on which the family relies.

Homsi had called on the Syrian people to boycott the recent parliamentary elections, and strongly criticized the regime. He also revealed in a recent interview on the liberal Arabic website Aafaq, that he had sent a letter to Sen. Nancy Pelosi asking her not to come to Damascus. Homsi added that the idea of engaging the Syrian regime is "a very dangerous proposition cause next will be a call to engage terrorist organizations." (Arabic. Aafaq, 4/30/07).

Homsi was first arrested in 2001, during the crackdown against the so-called "Damascus Spring" movement. He was sentenced to five years for "attempting to illegally change the constitution." He left Syria in June 2006, and said that the regime's intransigence had left him no other option but to leave.

Damascus Declaration: People Boycotted Elections

The Damascus Declaration (DD) grouping, the largest opposition umbrella gathering, said that the Syrian people "turned their faces away" from the parliamentary elections held last week. It also considered the statements made by regime officials, accusing the opposition of treason and collaboration, as reflecting "tension and anxiety." (Arabic. AKI, 4/27/07).

The gathering was referring to the statements made by the Minister of Expatriate Affairs, Buthaina Shaaban, who accused the opposition of collaborating with foreign forces, namely the US. Shaaban then threatened that "the fate of all those who collaborate against their country is well known." (AP, 4/22/07).

The DD's statement added that the Syrian people responded appropriately to these statements by boycotting the elections. (Arabic. ME Transparent, 4/27/07).

The grouping, which includes more than 20 organizations and various individuals, said that the voting process revealed "direct intervention to handpick independents by fielding so-called shadow lists." It also accused the authorities of "interference in counting the votes," and of "pressuring the candidates, and forbidding any political programmes."

The DD also revealed that there were pressures on public sector employees and college students "threatening to expel them from dorms in order to force them to vote."

The grouping added that the Syrian people turned their backs to the "elections theater," and thus "confirmed the correctness of the opposition's decision to boycott these sham elections." It also called for "a real and serious revision of the entire political and legal situation that governs the country and which entrenches the hegemony of a repressive and corrupt authority."

Anwar Bunni Sentenced to Five Years

Human rights lawyer and activist Anwar Bunni was sentenced to five years in jail and ordered to pay a $2,000 fine for "weakening the morale of the nation." (Arabic. AKI, 4/24/07). The fine is to be paid to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, which had demanded compensation for all the sums received by Bunni from the EU Commission, as director of the (partially EU-funded) center for human rights which he opened in Syria and which the Syrian authorities shut down in March 2006, a week after its opening. (Arabic. Elaph, 4/24/07).

Bunni was arrested in May 2006 along with ten others, including Michel Kilo, after signing the "Beirut-Damascus Declaration." The declaration, signed by around 300 Syrian and Lebanese activists, called on Syria to correct its relations with Lebanon and comply with UN resolutions by demarcating the border, setting up an embassy in Beirut and recognizing Lebanon's sovereignty and independence.

Bunni's defense called the sentence "a political decision" that has nothing to do with the law and should be annulled.

During the hearing, Bunni stressed that his trial was not because of any crime, but in order to silence him for his exposing of human rights violations, which is something he will never give up. He added that he considered the charge leveled against him a source of pride, and that he considered his trial a political charade subject to the directives of the powers that concocted it. Amnesty International held the same view in a statement released yesterday prior to the sentencing.

During his detention, Bunni was repeatedly abused as he was placed in the criminal ward and assaulted by common criminals, in the presence of the prison guards and with the knowledge of the prison administration, and at times even beaten by the prison guards. He detailed the conditions of political prisoners in a recent letter from jail to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. (English. ME Transparent, 3/10/07).

Reform Party Calls for Elections Boycott

The US-based Reform Party of Syria called on Syrians not to participate in the parliamentary elections this Sunday by not entering voting booths. (Arabic. AKI, 4/20/07).

The RPS's statement dubbed the booths, "the booths of humiliation," and called the elections a "mockery" and "another way for the Syrian regime to express its despotism and its cancellation of the people's opinion and their right to rule themselves in freedom and transparency."

The RPS said that the new parliament will be a mere clone of the current one which it dubbed "a puppet," adding that no real independents will make it into parliament except if they were "cronies of the Assad mafia."

Former MP Riad Seif's Experience in Parliament

Former independent MP Riad Seif, who was one of the leaders of the brief Damascus Spring movement, and who served five years in jail as a result, wrote about his experience as an MP in a lengthy article in the Lebanese daily al-Safir. (Arabic. 4/18/07).

The news service MideastWire translated the following excerpt:

My Experience in the People's Assembly: Delusions of Democracy under Tyranny

“On the margins of the elections which will take place in Syria soon, I found it necessary and useful to publish my personal experience in the People’s Assembly [Syrian parliament] and what I went through and suffered because of my attempts to defend the rights of the people and the concept of a developed, flourishing country free of oppression and corruption in the hope that this might help all those wishing to take on public office… Success in my experience in industry was the primary and most important motive for entering the field of politics and running in the elections for the parliament in 1994.”

Sayf added: “This success in industry started with a workshop for manufacturing shirts in 1963 to building the New Adidas Company in 1993 after I got the franchise from the international Adidas Corporation which was the first of its kind in Syria. The production of this factory covered the needs of the market in Syria and was exported to all over the world, especially the European Union carrying the international Adidas trademark with the term “made in Syria”. This industrial activity provided more than 1600 hundred jobs. I made sure that operations went on smoothly in a developed atmosphere permeated with the spirit of teamwork and cooperation as the company provided its employees with top salaries as well as excellent services including meals, social care, children care, healthcare, swimming pools, and entertainment through plays…”

Sayf continued: “My hope was that if I managed to become an MP, I would generalize this experience throughout the productive and service segments in Syria through the legislative authority which is supposed to unite all the patriots and supervise the workings of the government and state institutions. I was encouraged by the wishes of some of my friends and those knowledgeable about my industrial experience especially as the authorities had launched a campaign back then full of promises of implementing reform which would start after the parliamentary elections in the knowledge that I had never before paid any attention to the elections because of my belief that they were only for appearance’s sake and their results were known beforehand…On the election day, 2000 young men and women volunteers from the company, family, and friends spread across the electoral centers proving their enthusiasm…”

Sayf added: “I was woken the day following the elections by the noise of those coming to congratulate me and tell me that I got the highest result among the independent candidates. That moment was the most important turning point in my life and I pledged to myself that I would remain loyal to the trust given to me by the sons of Damascus. I started preparing for my mission by dedicating my main office in downtown Damascus for the activities related to my new job helped by a cadre that would aid me in gathering information and preparing reports. My efforts throughout the first period as a member of the people’s council in 1994-1998 were focused on calling for economic and financial reform, removing the obstacles hindering the revival of national industry, and restoring the balance between salaries and costs, and focusing on fighting corruption which I consider to be the source of all evils and the number one cause for all the failures and catastrophes that befell and are still afflicting the Syrian people.”

Sayf added: “Back then, I hadn’t discovered the truth that corruption is a natural result of tyranny and its legitimate offspring. Thus I entered into a Don-Quixotic and completely unequal battle with the government and the mafias of corruption which ended naturally in my defeat and my exit from my position at the end of the term having lost all that I had earned throughout my life and laden with taxes and debts, some of them artificial and some exuberant, as well as my extreme loss with the death of my son Iyad (21 years old) in mysterious and suspicious circumstances on August 2, 1996. My four year experience in the parliament taught me that here this authority is not linked to legislating or monitoring the executive branch or holding it accountable as any legislative authority is supposed to do or as is the case in the parliaments of the civilized world.”

Sayf continued: “This parliament’s role was restricted to the formalities or adding a cosmetic touch to the whole process that would make the regime appear in a democratic guise to the Syrian public and the world especially in the presence of the 1973 constitution which gives the president the right to issue legislation whenever he wants. All the laws suggested by the government were passed routinely after allowing some space for the MPs to discuss it for appearance’s sake without allowing them to introduce any amendment to their content. More often than not, the discussions were prefabricated by the speaker as if we were in a theatre rehearsing a play with a crew of talented speech makers experienced in deluding the media all coming from the Ba’th party or the parties of the national progressive front thus robbing the vote of any true meaning.”

Sayf added: “If any of the new members wanted to fly outside the flock and insisted on going against the flow, he would be brought back to the “correct” path either through incentives if available or through terrorization and punishments if necessary. Here was my problem with the assembly and the government. My suffering started with the protests by the finance ministry against my first ever participation on the 15th of November 1994 and continued with repeated interruptions by the speaker and ministers of most of my participations which I presented until the finance minister started imposing exuberant taxes on me. I accepted back then an invitation by the head of the finance department in Damascus who told me on the phone that he has news that will please me a lot. In that meeting, he started talking by reminding me that we were from the same neighbourhood and then announced that he wanted to help me by mediating with the finance minister “so he would get off my back”. He ad ded: “some criticism is ok and I will alert you to the points that you can criticize as I did with you colleagues in the council; then after the end of the budgetary session I will arrange a meeting for you with the minister”…”

Former MP Homsi slams Syria elections

Dissident former MP Ma'moun Homsi, who fled Syria earlier this year, called on Syrians Friday to boycott this weekend's parliamentary elections, which he dubbed illegitimate. (Middle East Times, 4/20/07).

Homsi said in a statement, "the security services are leading the elections, fielding whichever candidates they want, and excluding those they do not want using various means. ...  Where is freedom when jails are growing and are filled with intellectuals and politicians and lawyers who were thrown there for no other crime than expressing their views. ... I add my voice to that of my brothers in the opposition, and call upon [Syrians] not to participate in these elections in order to prove to the world that they are illegitimate, and merely preparing for illegitimate presidential elections. They are unconstitutional and don't abide by international standards or the ambitions and right of the people to choose its leaders." (Arabic. AFP, UPI, via al-Mustaqbal, 4/21/07).

Homsi added, "as for the oversight role of Parliament, this regime has torpedoed this right when it threw two independent MPs from Damascus [Homsi and Riad Seif] in jail for five years. This incident became a lesson to all MPs and to anyone who tries to criticize the regime."

Homsi was jailed for five years for seeking to "illegally change the constitution" and was eventually released January 18 this year with four other dissidents.

He left Syria following the detention of another fellow dissident - Michel Kilo.