Interview with Abdalaziz al-Khair, leading figure of the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change, Syria

16 May 2012: Abdulaziz al-Khair was a leading member of the Communist Action Party. He was persecuted and had to live underground for more than ten years. He was arrested and tortured in 1992, sentenced to 22 years and released in 2005. In 2007 he participated in founding the “Left Assembly”, which included the Communist Action Party, the Kurdish Left Party, the Body of Syrian Communists, the Marxist Democratic Assembly and the Coordination Committee of the Members of the Syrian Communist Party – Politburo. Read more

Syria: Deported Palestinian journalist speaks out about torture in custody

A prominent journalist has told Amnesty International how Syrian government forces tortured and detained him in deplorable conditions before deporting him to Jordan on Monday.

Salameh Kaileh, a 57-year-old Jordanian national of Palestinian descent, has lived and worked in the Syrian capital Damascus since 1981.  Read more

The AKP’s ‘New Kurdish Strategy’ Is Nothing of the Sort

An Interview with Selahattin Demirtas by Jake Hess | published May 2, 2012

Selahattin Demirtas is co-president of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party of Turkey (BDP), the fourth largest political party in the country. The BDP is not formally tied to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been in armed conflict with the Turkish state since 1984, but it shares the PKK’s core political demands and the two groups likely have many supporters in common. As such, the BDP is a pivotal player in the search for peace. Hopes for a political solution to the decades-old confrontation between the Kurds and the government of Turkey were raised in 2009, when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) launched an initiative known as the “Kurdish” or “democratic opening,” only for the effort to collapse that winter. Talk of democratic reforms and a new approach to the Kurdish issue has resurfaced since the AKP won a third term in the 2011 parliamentary elections, but prospects remain grim as PKK-army clashes and political repression of the Kurdish movement continue. A lawyer by trade, Demirtas represents the Hakkari province in the Turkish parliament and is a past vice president of the Human Rights Association of Turkey. Jake Hess interviewed him in Washington during a BDP parliamentary delegation visit in April and translated the conversation from Turkish. Read more

HRW: They Burned My Heart

Syria: War Crimes in Idlib During Peace Negotiations
Executions, Destruction of Property, and Arbitrary Detentions

(New York, May 2, 2012) – Syrian government forces killed at least 95 civilians and burned or destroyed hundreds of houses during a two-week offensive in northern Idlib governorate shortly before the ceasefire, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The attacks happened in late March and early April, as United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan was negotiating with the Syrian government to end the fighting.

The 38-page report, “‘They Burned My Heart’: War Crimes in Northern Idlib during Peace Plan Negotiations,” documents dozens of extrajudicial executions, killings of civilians, and destruction of civilian property that qualify as war crimes, as well as arbitrary detention and torture. The report is based on a field investigation conducted by Human Rights Watch in the towns of Taftanaz, Saraqeb, Sarmeen, Kelly, and Hazano in Idlib governorate in late April. Read more

Syria: Human Rights and Democracy: The 2011 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Report

The Arab Spring sparked protests in Deraa in southern Syria in March. These spread quickly across the country, with demonstrators calling for democratic reform and, latterly, regime change. The Syrian government responded with violent repression. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay reported throughout the year many horrific cases of security forces subjecting civilians, including women and children, to severe human rights violations in their attempts to crush the protests. Read more

Syria: Extrajudicial Executions

9 April 2012 - Security Council Sanctions, ICC Referral Needed
(New York) – Syrian security forces summarily executed over 100 – and possibly many more – civilians and wounded or captured opposition fighters during recent attacks on cities and towns, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 25-page report, “In Cold Blood: Summary Executions by Syrian Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias,” documents more than a dozen incidents involving at least 101 victims since late 2011, many of them in March 2012. Human Rights Watch documented the involvement of Syrian forces and pro-government shabeehamilitias in summary and extrajudicial executions in the governorates of Idlib and Homs. Government and pro-government forces not only executed opposition fighters they had captured, or who had otherwise stopped fighting and posed no threat, but also civilians who likewise posed no threat to the security forces. Read more

Surge in violence in Syria unacceptable, says UN-Arab League envoy

8 April 2012 – The Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States, Kofi Annan today stressed the escalation of violence in Syria is “unacceptable”, and called on the Government to withdraw troops and cease all hostilities.

Syrian non-violence movement: The virtue of civil disobedience

Civil disobedience is the only way to mobilise people in big cities that are deemed to be regime strongholds in Syria.

Something is happening in Syria, away from the media spotlight. Last March 27, when Damascus woke up, the independence flag – symbol of the Syrian revolution -  was raised in different districts, from Berzeh to Mezzeh, from school walls to bridges. Civil disobedience groups had successfully managed to coordinate the biggest anti-regime protests conducted simultaneously in different parts of the Syrian capital. Read more

Chairman’s Conclusions of Friends of Syria meeting

Full text of the Chairman’s Conclusions of the International Conference of the Group of Friends of the Syrian People on 1 April:
1. The Second Conference of the Group of Friends of the Syrian People (“the Friends’ Group”) was held in Istanbul on 1 April 2012. Read more

Arab League: Carry Out, Monitor Syria Sanctions

Take Consistent Approach to Uprisings in Region

(New York, March 29, 2012) – The League of Arab States should at its summit in Baghdad that began on March 27, 2012, commit to carrying out and monitoring the implementation of the targeted sanctions against the Syrian leadership it agreed to in November 2011, Human Rights Watch said today. Read more

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