Protests in Syria Continue - Syrian-American Activists Fearful for Relatives in Syria

Syrian-American Activists Fearful for Relatives in Syria
Mana Rabiee
VOA - September 14, 2011




As protests in Syria continue, Syrian-American dissidents in the U.S. are increasingly faced with a troubling dilemma: Do they pursue their activism from afar - even if it places their relatives and loved ones back home in Syria at greater risk?

Radwan Ziadeh is a Syrian-American activist in Washington. Ever since the uprising in his homeland, this mild-mannered university professor has been a central figure in the Syrian opposition movement in the United States. Then last week, he got the message he had hoped never to receive.

"I get one line from my brother in Syria saying that ‘I have bad news for you, Radwan,'" Ziadeh said.

Ziadeh’s brother, Yasin, a small business owner, had been arrested after a protest in their hometown Daraa. Now, Ziadeh and his family are concerned that Yasin’s treatment in detention will be especially brutal - to pressure his activist brother in the U.S. into silence.

"This is why I always have some guilt that I have put my family in some pressure and always they been interrogating my mother and my brothers, trying actually to use them as a hostage to push me to be quiet," Ziadeh said.

Ziadeh is not alone. Khalid Saleh is a spokesman for the Syrian-American Council based in Chicago. He said Syrian-American dissidents are now thinking about how their activism in the U.S. may jeopardize the safety of their families back home.

"A few of us also were contacted by our family members in Syria telling us ‘Please cool things down because you are putting us at risk.’ The ‘mokhaberat’ - the secret security forces in Syria -- have reached out to a few of our family members, asked them questions about our activities here in the States, trying to get more information about us," Saleh said.

Some of those relatives have already paid a price for their family members’ activism in the U.S.

Malek Jandali is a Syrian-American composer and performed at a protest rally outside the White House in July.

A few days later, he said his elderly father and mother were attacked in their home by government security forces. "She was asking them ‘Why are you hitting me? What’s going on?’ and they kept referring to me and to my concert and how I stand by the people and how I mock the government and they kept beating her and telling her ‘We’re going to teach you how to raise your kids.'"

Reports of similar incidents have reached the U.S. State Department. They have raised the U.S concern with the Syrian embassy in Washington over allegations that Syrian-Americans as well as their families in Syria may have been harassed and intimidated by supporters of the Syrian government.

“Everyone has the right to have their opinion be heard without fear of repercussions, without fear of arrest, and without fear of their families being attacked. And any country that seeks to do those types of things to its citizens is completely inappropriate and acting outside of international norms and that’s unacceptable,” said Andy Halus, a State Department spokesman.

But as pressure on the Assad regime grows, activists like Ziadeh say they continue to receive threatening emails and text messages nearly every day.

"He’s threatening that ‘If your brother get exit from the prison I will kill him,'" Ziadeh said reading a threatening text message from his cell phone.

"Every minute I ask [my] self ‘Where is he right now? What is he doing inside the prison? Does he get good food? Does he get water? How is his family doing?’…This feeling make me very nervous every day, day by day, because I cannot do more," Ziadeh said.

Other Syrian-American activists also say that while they themselves are far from Syrian police and prisons - they never forget that each new protest could bring retribution on their loved ones back home.

Iran Denies Role in Syria Crackdown - vicious assaults on peaceful protesters

June 14, 2011

Iran Denies Role in Syria Crackdown

VOA - Elizabeth Arrott | Cairo

Iran has rejected allegations from Britain and the United States that it is helping Syria crack down on domestic opposition with advice, equipment, and training. Iran remains a key Syrian ally, with the two governments finding common ground on such issues as Israel, Lebanon and Iraq.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accuses Iran of supporting the Syrian government in what she calls its vicious assaults on peaceful protesters and military actions against its own cities.

Violence in Syria - Rights groups say at least 1,100 have been killed...

France to Push for UN Vote to Condemn Syrian Violence

VOA, Margaret Besheer - United Nations June 07, 2011

France says it will push for a vote in the U.N. Security Council on a resolution condemning a government crackdown on protesters in Syria. Foreign Minister Alain Juppé says a vote could come soon.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Security Council meeting on HIV/AIDS, Juppé said the situation in Syria is escalating and the council must take action.

“The repression is getting worse; the massacres are on the rise. It is inconceivable that the U.N. remains silent on such a matter. We are working with our U.K. friends to have as large a majority as possible on the Security Council. I think we have to move to a vote so that everyone can assume their responsibilities,” Juppe said.

President Barack Obama Tells Syria's Assad to Lead Transition or Leave

Obama Tells Syria's Assad to Lead Transition or Leave

VOA - David Gollust | State Department May 19, 2011

US President Barack Obama delivers a speech about United States' policy on the Middle East and North Africa at the State Department in Washington, May 19, 2011.

In his Middle East policy speech, President Barack Obama said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad faces the choice of either leading a democratic transition in his country or getting out of the way.  The comment came a day after the U.S. administration imposed sanctions on the Syrian leader and key aides.

President Barack Obama's comments stopped short of an outright demand Syria's leader step down. But the remarks were another sign of diminishing U.S. patience with President Bashar al-Assad, whose reform promises have been contradicted by an ongoing brutal crackdown on protesters.

"The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy," said Obama.  "President Assad now has a choice: he can lead that transition, or get out of the way.  The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests, release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests, they must allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Daraa, and start a serious dialogue to advance a democratic transition."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on anti-government protesters...

Assad Family Grip on Syria Hampers Reform

VOA - Elizabeth Arrott | Cairo May 17, 2011

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on anti-government protesters has been leavened with at least verbal concessions to reform. But given the history of the country, the government and his family, some political analysts believe those promises will never be fulfilled.

'The Fear' by Peter Godwin - Books

Desperation, Hope Mix in Zimbabwe Fight for Democracy

Journalist Peter Godwin's new book explores period known as 'The Fear'

VOA - Faiza Elmasry | Washington, D.C. April 13, 2011

Though he has covered wars and conflicts, journalist Peter Godwin wasn't prepared for the surreal mix of desperation and hope he encountered when he returned to Zimbabwe, his broken homeland, in 2008.

After ruling for nearly 30 years, President Robert Mugabe finally lost an election. However, instead of conceding power, he launched a brutal campaign of terror to stay in office. With most foreign correspondents banned, Godwin was one of the few observers to bear witness to the period locals call "The Fear." His new memoir recounts that experience.

Liberators' old boys' club

Mugabe led a civil war against the white minority government in Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known then. Since its independence in 1980, the eloquent, highly educated 87-year-old has been the country’s only president.

"There is a kind of liberators’ 'old boys' club,'" says Godwin, who was born and raised in Zimbabwe. He says those liberators’ parties are still in power in the southern African countries that fought anti-colonial wars. Godwin points to the South West Africa People’s Organization, SWAPO, in Namibia and the African National Congress, ANC, in South Africa.

"Mugabe says to people, 'No one can be a leader in Zimbabwe without having fought in the war.' Well, the war finished 30 years ago," says Godwin. "So you hear Mugabe talking to audiences about the war and you look at the youthful audience and no one in that audience was alive then. And of course that liberation war message does become weaker as the generations go on."

Consequently, the liberators begin to lose their support among the population. While Mugabe always managed to win elections, his government’s policies were increasingly unpopular, and the opposition won a majority of Parliamentary seats in the 2008 vote.

'The Fear'

Instead of conceding power, Mugabe forced a run-off, and used terror and intimidation tactics against the opposition party and its supporters.

Godwin went to Zimbabwe to cover the final results of the elections, and didn’t expect to see what he did.

"Mugabe and his militia, and the army and police helping, launched a campaign of torture on an industrial scale. Ironically they used the abandoned schools as a site for the torture bases," says Godwin. "So they would fan out into the villages and they would pick up opposition office holders, the party secretaries and chairmen at the village level even. They would often attack them, burn their houses down, and herd them into these torture bases. There they would torture them very,very severely."

Godwin interviewed hundreds of these men, when they finally were able to get to hospitals.

"Many of them, they were in such pain that they couldn’t lie down, or sit, or stand because the flesh and the skin on their back. They had been literally flayed alive," he says. "Some people were killed during the torture, but many more people were tortured and then were released to go back to their communities. And they acted as human billboards. They were advertisements for what happens to you if you oppose the regime."

According to Godwin, Mugabe's use of torture as a campaign tactic has lingering effects. "Once you’ve done something like this to people, it can condition them. The next time you threaten them, they know it is for real. Now as we gear up perhaps to new elections, which Mugabe is talking about holding either later this year or maybe early next year, people still remember what happened last time and they are afraid."

Profiles of courage

But not all of them are afraid. In his book, "The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe," Godwin shares dozens of stories of  Zimbabweans who continued fighting for democracy despite having been tortured. One of those people was a man who had been arrested many times.

"In fact, we think he is the most arrested man in Zimbabwe. I said to him, ‘Don’t you sometimes think it’s enough already, maybe you should give it a rest.’ He said, ‘I tried to give up and just do a quiet life. I felt like I wasn’t doing what I should be doing, I had a duty to do this, I had a duty to help democracy to happen. I just felt empty.’"

In the book. Godwin writes of Chenjerai Mangezo, a candidate for the Bindura Rural District Council, who was brutally beaten by militants loyal to Mugabe.

He managed to hoist himself up a little so that he could look at his assailants, now lit against the newly emerging moon. And he said to them, ‘"ou had better be sure to kill me. Because if you don’t, I’m going to come after you, all of you. I know who you are.’"

Not only did he survive, Mangezo won his election.

"When he heard that they were having the first day of the local council, he was still in the hospital," says Godwin. "He was determined to be there. So he got people to load him into a pickup truck because he couldn’t bend his legs. They drove him down a bumpy road, several hours outside Harare. Some of the people who had assaulted him, you know Mugabe’s people, were there, and they were shocked to see him because they thought he died."

Godwin says it is that resilience which compelled him to write "The Fear." Zimbabweans already have functioning political institutions and the desire to pursue democracy. What they need and deserve now, he says, is fair elections.

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Women in the Middle East Revolution - Will they get more rights?

Will Women Benefit from Middle East Revolution?
VOA - Aida F. Akl | Washington, D.C. March 09, 2011

When the dust of Egypt's revolution began to settle and the country struggled toward a democratic government, many of the women who stood side-by-side with men in Cairo's Tahrir Square were struck that not one woman was named to the committee to reform the constitution.

Prominent Egyptian author and activist Nawaal el-Saadawi says that angered women who marched on equal footing with men to oust former President Hosni Mubarak - only to find themselves thrown back to the old ways and excluded from the new order. She said the women felt their rights were being taken from them.

"Women’s rights cannot be given ... We have to take [them] by the political power of women," she said. "And that’s why we are reestablishing our Egyptian Women Union."

Al-Saadawi says women were scattered, weak and divided under the former regime and efforts are under way to unite them.

"So we are trying to bring women together to have political power so that we can fight for our rights in a collective group," al-Saadawi explained.

Fears of being excluded also echoed in neighboring Tunisia among many of the women who participated in the revolution to oust the Ben-Ali regime. Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy and Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations says Tunisian women worry about the return to power of some of the more conservative elements might try to repeal Tunisia's progressive family laws.

Coleman notes that Iraq saw a similar situation a few years ago, when the country's new government tried to rescind the family law that had been in place under the Baathist regime for a long time and replace it with religious law. Many Iraqi women favored the implementation of Islamic law, says Coleman, while others feared it would mean a regression of their rights.

But it remains unclear how women will benefit from revolutionary change in the Middle East. Coleman says the first consequence has been the "fall of more secular-oriented governments that have used their authoritarian power to push through, often against the wishes of powerful voices within the country, more progressive rights for women."

She says governments are now going to have grapple with the possible resurgence of Islamists. "And women's rights will be a very clear litmus test of whether they are finding compatibility between Islam and democracy or not," noted Coleman.

Crucial to finding that compatibility is a clear definition of women's roles in society. The problem, says Shadi Hamid, a Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center, is that there is no clear consensus around the role women should play, particularly in Arab society. That is partially due to the perception that women's rights are more of a Western concept.

"And that's why we see the odd phenomenon in some countries of Arab women working against their own supposed 'rights,' " explained Hamid. "And we see this, for example, in some of the Gulf countries where women have actually advocated against being given the right to vote or have not been in favor of, supposedly, pro-Western reform."

Cheryl Benard, a Senior Analyst with the RAND Corporation, says there are women who have made a "generations-long bargain" with the existing society, where they accept that they are going to be in an inferior position, and they believe that, in exchange for that, they get something.

"They get security. They get the shelter of their relatives taking care of them," said Benard. "So those women, I think, are, in part, afraid of change because they are afraid of what it will mean if that traditional, conservative protection maybe falls away and they have to be in charge of themselves."

Benard says that fear is less prevalent among the young and educated urban populations, leaving a gap between rural and urbal populations. Equally pronounced are the gaps that stand out in education, political participation and labor in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2010.

The report also reveals some interesting extremes. Women in the United Arab Emirates, for example, surpass men in educational attainment by two points, but lag behind men in Yemen by about 36 percentage points.

But the Rand Corporation's Benard cautions that the statistics don't tell the whole story. She says the overall, long-term picture is promising. For example, countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia no longer publish grades at universities because the women are so far ahead of the men that they don’t want to embarrass the men.

"Yes there are countries where women lag behind, where they are more of the illiterates compared to men. But if you look at it generationally, first of all it tends to be often not really true anymore of the younger women," Benard said. "And if you look at it regionally - urban vs. rural areas - it’s also not quite true. There have been a lot of changes going on and women have actually even pulled ahead of men in the educational field in some areas. The same is true economically."

But progress in education has not been matched on the political front. Women parliamentarians remain absent in places like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and their share of cabinet positions in most other countries is contingent on a quota-based system.

"There are a couple different models here," says Hamid of Brookings. "One model ... that you’ve seen in Morocco and Jordan, is where the regime, or in this case the monarchies, ignore popular opinions and effectively impose changes in the sphere of women’s participation."

Hamid says the majority opinion is not very supportive of a very visible role for women. "And that's why when there aren't quotas in the political system, women have immense difficulties winning even the smallest number of seats in parliamentary elections."

Top-down efforts, says Hamid, don’t have the support of the larger population. Many people don't feel comfortable voting women into senior positions, and not all women are in favor of women's empowerment. He says a lot of women's empowerment efforts come from the secular, elite side of society, which is a minority in Arab society.

"The population will go along with it, but it’s not really based on a cultural shift," he said. "It’s not based on a shift in attitudes. And without that shift in attitudes at the grassroots level, change is not going to be deep or sustainable ... The question is how do you initiate a grassroots process in favor of women’s empowerment?"

As democracy begins to emerge in the Middle East, Hamid says women and liberal groups advocating their rights will have greater political space and room to make their voices heard.

"We have to question the whole premise that equal rights in the Western sense, is something that all societies would like and want to fight for," he cautioned. "And it appears to be the case that Arab societies aren’t willing to go all the way to where the West is ... I think everyone supports women’s empowerment. But I think it means different things to different people."

While Benard of the RAND Corporation agrees that the region has to find its own formula for women's empowerment, she says the women and their families who participated in the revolutions embody a change in Middle Eastern women that has disspelled some of the Western misconceptions.

"This is quite a different picture of the role of women in the Middle East ... where one thought that the families were all ultra-conservative, [that] they don’t want the women to be out and about, [that] they don’t think that the public space is something appropriate for women," Benard said. "That is not what we have seen. We’ve also seen women ... online, taking a leadership role often and organizing this and calling for things to happen."

So how will Middle Eastern women shape their own future in the new order?

The populations of the region are able to determine their own destiny, says Benard, and are more capable than they are given credit for. "Sometimes, she says, "the best thing you can do for somebody is [to] get out of their way."


Will Women Benefit from Middle East Revolution?
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No Democracy for China Says a Senior Chinese Leader - But what do most people in China want?

No Democracy for China, Says Prominent Official
VOA - Thursday, March 10th, 2011

A senior Chinese leader says his country will never embrace democracy or other Western-style political reforms.

Wu Bangguo made the assertions Thursday during a speech before the annual session of the National People's Congress in Beijing. Mr. Wu, the chairman of the NPC, told the delegates that China's leaders have made “a solemn declaration” that they will not adopt a multiparty system of democracy.

He also dismissed the notion of separating power between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, or adopting a federal style of government that delegates broad powers to local and regional administrations.

The Chinese Communist Party has ruled the country with a tight grip since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces defeated the Nationalists in a civil war.



No Democracy for China, Says Prominent Official
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Philippines 25 Years of Democracy Celebrated

The Philippines Celebrates 25 Years of Democracy
Simone Orendain | Manila February 25, 2011 - VOA


In the Philippines, celebrations are marking the 25th anniversary of the People Power Revolution that toppled the long-ruling dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Friday’s anniversary is especially significant for Philippine President Benigno Aquino the Third, whose parents were instrumental in restoring democracy to the country 25 years ago.

Speaking at a ceremony to unveil a statue of one of the revolution’s leaders, he reminded ordinary citizens of the day’s meaning.

Aquino says Filipinos showed so many nations that it is possible to have a peaceful revolution. This is their "gift to the world."

The uprising against Ferdinand Marcos, who had ruled for more than 20 years, began after what is considered to have been a widely fraudulent election.

For four days in February 1986, more than half a million people converged on a Manila highway known as EDSA to support Marcos’ election rival, Corazon Aquino.

After the military turned against Marcos, the United States flew him and his family out of the country. Aquino, the current president’s mother, was recognized as the new president.

Corazon Aquino, who died in 2009, was the widow of Marcos’ strongest opponent, Benigno Junior. She was thrust into politics after her husband was assassinated three years before.

The first President Aquino worked to restore institutions of democracy such as the election commission. She led efforts to reform the constitution, solidifying the country’s democracy.

But the reforms have not accomplished all that Filipinos had sought.

"Participation of citizens, for example, was enshrined in the constitution in 1986, however, the quality and the substantive participation of people in the decision-making in the processes of our governance have remained problematic," said Edna Co, dean of the College of Public Administration at the University of the Philippines.

Corruption and inefficiency plague the government. The country still suffers from both a communist insurgency and a violent Muslim separatist movement in the south. In some areas, local politicians or powerful landowners operate private militias. Over the years, scores of rights activists, journalists and political workers have been murdered, with few of their killers ever arrested.

Co says there has not been a serious commitment by leaders or ordinary people alike, to making sure the changes brought by the EDSA revolution have been upheld.

"We continue to yield to the same set up and we have not taken a decisive move and a collective - a shared move - to alter the existing system. And therefore I think things have gotten worse because we have not changed that system," said Co.

Co also says poverty is worse than it was 25 years ago.

But for all its flaws, the EDSA revolution was seen as an example for other countries, such as Indonesia. It was part of an overall peaceful trend toward democracy and away from strong-man governments in East Asia in the 1980s that included South Korea and Taiwan.





The Philippines Celebrates 25 Years of Democracy
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Tunisia - Opportunity to Build a Democratic Country

Tunisian President Flees Country Amid Unrest

Lisa Bryant | Tunis - 14 January 2011 - VOA 

Tunisia's President has fled the country and the prime minister has announced he is in charge Friday after protests and riots rocked the capital.

Tunisian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi went on state television to say he was assuming power amid reports the country's president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had fled the country. The army has sealed off the airport and closed Tunisian airspaced. Earlier President Ben Ali announced a state of emergency and fired the government following the worst unrest to hit this North African country in decades.

Earlier in the day, thousands of protesters demonstrated in Tunis demanding President Ben Ali step down. The main Habib Bourguiba Boulevard was a sea of humanity, as young and old, well-off and poor, chanted for change.

One young man said the message was clear: Tunisians had lost confidence in their government. They want someone who can serve the country, serve its people. Many other protesters voiced similar sentiments.

Tunisia Country Profile

Location: Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Algeria and Libya Population: 10,589,025 (July 2010 est.) Ethnic Groups: Arab 98%, European 1%, Jewish and other 1% Religion: Muslim 98%, Christian 1%, Jewish and other 1% Languages: Arabic , French Government: Republic History: Tunisia declared independence from France on March 20, 1956. Habib Bourguiba was Tunisia's first president. He was deposed by then-Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on Nov. 7, 1987. Mr. Ben Ali was elected to a fifth consecutive term in office in October 2009.

But the demonstrations took an ugly turn in the afternoon. Riot police came out in force. People scattered. Young men lobbed objects at the police who responded with tear gas.

The government announced a curfew, sealing Tunisians and foreigners in their homes. Tunis hospital officials reported 13 dead late Thursday. There were no immediate reports of a casualty toll Friday.

The unrest began several weeks ago, touched off by the death of a man in southern Tunisia who set himself on fire to protest his inability to sell his produce. It was fanned by the Internet and by Tunisians angry about economic hardship and perceived corruption among top Tunisian politicians. Dozens of people have died in the unrest, although government officials and human rights groups offer vastly different tallies.

Tunisian President Flees Country Amid Unrest - article came from VOA