Syria’s Weird Democracy
May 13, 2007, 10:23 am |
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By Andrew L. Jaffee
Syria sure is ruled by a weird tribe: a Baathist/Socialist/Alawite minority led by an ophthalmologist, Bashar al-Assad. Weird or not, they sure mean business when it comes to staying in power and squelching democracy. And please don’t tell me there are no Muslims who want democracy. From the BBC:
A Syrian court has sentenced two democracy activists, Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa, to three years in prison. …
The men were arrested last year after signing a petition that called on Syria to improve its relations with Lebanon. …
Michel Kilo is a veteran democracy activist and one of the country’s leading writers.
Mahmoud Issa is a translator and former political prisoner who has already spent eight years in jail. …
A Syrian court has reportedly sentenced a leading dissident [Kamal Labwani] to 12 years in jail for undermining national security after he visited the US. …
A Syrian human rights activist [Anwar al-Bunni] has been jailed for five years for… spreading false or exaggerated news that could weaken national morale, affiliating with an unlicensed political association with an international nature, discrediting state institutions and contacting a foreign country…
“I didn’t commit any crime. This sentence is to shut me up and to stop the effort to expose human rights violations in Syria,” he said, according to Reuters.
Related: Dictator Watch, Syria