Damascene Thoughts

CNN: Syrian opposition meets to put up united front

2011-07-16T23:49:00.000-05:00

By the CNN Wire Staff

July 16, 2011 7:34 p.m. EDT

Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) -- Hundreds of exiled Syrian activists meeting in Istanbul on Saturday elected a 25-member council as they sought to declare unity in their intention to oust the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The National Salvation Council, composed of independents, liberals, Islamists and members of other parties, will serve as an umbrella organization representing various factions of the Syrian opposition -- sometimes seen as fractured in their demands.

"Bashar al-Assad is finished," said Haitham al-Maleh, a political prisoner who was released from jail in March in an attempt to appease protesters. "He must leave the country, leave the power. We want to build our government, our regime, without them.

"We will move together to be one opposition ... because you know we spent 50 years under a dictatorship," he said. "The civil society in Syria is finished. Now we are building ourselves for the future."

The Syrian National Salvation conference -- attended by about 350 opposition members -- unfolded as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was also in Istanbul for meetings with Turkish officials, expressed support for the opposition.

"What's happening in Syria is very uncertain and troubling, because many of us had hoped that President Assad would make the reforms that were necessary without seeing what we're now seeing in the streets of Syria, which are government tanks and soldiers shooting peaceful demonstrators," she said.

"There must be a legitimate, sincere effort with the opposition to try to make changes," she said. "I don't know whether that will happen or not."

Some opposition members were frustrated at what they perceived as a lack of response from the international community and hoped that a united Syrian opposition would ratchet up pressure on al-Assad.

"The international community seems to be still dancing around the issue of the Assad regime losing legitimacy and that could be due to a number of reasons," said M. Yaser Tabbara, a Syrian-American human rights lawyer.

"I think what we're trying to do is send these reassurances to the international community that a credible, competent council or body is being formed, and that we do not have to worry anymore about a vacuum of power or a vacuum for an alternative."

He said the Syrian opposition wants world powers to choke the regime economically, politically and diplomatically "to achieve a point of no return."

A similar opposition meeting was to have taken place in Damascus but because of violence Friday, the meeting was canceled. However, two prominent activists were able to connect to Istanbul via Skype and telephone.

But despite efforts to maintain a united front, there was disagreement still over whether to push for the ouster of al-Assad or to work to promote reforms within the current framework. And a banner that read the "Syrian Arab Republic" drew the ire of the Kurdish delegation for the inclusion of the word, Arab.

Meanwhile in Syria, more violence erupted following a day of nationwide protests.

At least one person was killed Saturday when Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters in the eastern town of Albu Kamal, according to the activist group Local Coordination Committees in Syria.

State television said, however, that "armed groups" attacked a police station, a mayor's home and other government sites in Albu Kamal and that two policeman was killed. It said a number of guards were injured.

At least 21 civilians and one soldier were killed Friday in demonstrations. Sixteen of the fatalities occurred in Damascus and its suburbs, one in Homs, three in Idlib and one in Daraa, said Rami Abelrahman, director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Videos that allegedly showed the funeral processions for those killed were posted Saturday on Facebook pages belonging to Syrian activists. They showed people marching on the streets, carrying coffins and chanting slogans against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

As of Friday, the death toll for civilians since the unrest began more than four months ago rose to 1,440, with an additional 353 deaths among army and security personnel, Abelrahman said.

Protesters echoed the demands for reforms that they have voiced for months.

Original post: Syrian opposition meets to put up united front

SYRIA: Some doubt explanation for mystery blast

2011-07-13T08:57:00.003-05:00

An explosion echoed through the area of Tayana in the eastern Syrian province of Dair Azour late Tuesday night when a pipeline caught fire.

The incident, which occurred around midnight, may have been the result of a wildfire that reached the oil pipeline, said SANA, the official Syrian Arab News Agency, quoting an unnamed official. Syrian state officials said the fire was an accident caused by technical mishaps rather than sabotage.

But many doubted the official story.

According to Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the explanation provided by state officials was unlikely, owing in great part to the timing of the explosion.

"It is unlikely that a wildfire is going to start at 11 p.m. in the evening. How can grass surrounding the pipeline catch fire by itself? And if it was really just a fire, why did they wait till today to mention it?" he said.

The impoverished southeast region has been the scene of almost daily protests as Syrian security forces keep a close eye on the area from the outside, surrounding the city. Many are afraid the security forces will use the blast as an excuse to crack down harder.

"The implications of this event are dangerous, irrespective of whoever is behind it," said Abdel Rahman."One of the residents in Tayana heard the sound of a blast and hurried to the tribal chief there to notify him of what he had heard and to tell him that the residents had nothing to do with it."

"There are so many stories. What if it's not an explosion of an oil pipeline? No one buys the narratives propagated by state media and state officials," said Ahed el Hindi, prominent Syrian dissident based in Washington. "But still, it does not suit the regime to look weak at this time."

Protesters have largely observed peaceful protest in the 4-month-long uprising that has consumed various provinces, towns and villages throughout Syria.

"Faced with the question of who was more likely to have done something like this, my answer would be the Syrian regime," said Yaser Tabbara, Syrian lawyer, activist and executive director of the Syrian American Council. "I don't put it beyond the regime to have done this to distract."

-- Roula Hajjar in Beirut

Original post: SYRIA: Some doubt explanation for mystery blast

The World Today: Syrian reformer turned prosecutor fears retaliation

2011-07-12T18:35:00.001-05:00

Eleanor Hall reported this story on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 12:42:00

ELEANOR HALL: To Syria now where international tensions have soared over an assault by regime loyalists on the US and French embassies in Damascus, which the regime's security forces failed to prevent.

The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton responded by declaring that president Bashar al-Assad was not indispensable and that the US had nothing invested in him remaining in power.

But the Syrian president said he was still working for a political solution to the crisis, convening a reform dialogue in the capital.

A short time ago I spoke to a Syrian-American who was working with the Syrian government on democratic reform until the protests began.

Yaser Tabbara is the executive director of the Syrian American Council. He says he was horrified by president Assad's response to the protests and since March has been helping to build a crimes against humanity case against the regime for the International Criminal Court.

He spoke to me this morning from Chicago.

Yaser Tabbara, the US secretary of state said today that the Syrian government failed to protect US diplomats from pro-government demonstrators and that the US now has nothing invested in Bashar al-Assad remaining in power, that he is not indispensable.

Is the Syrian leader likely to be alarmed by this?

YASER TABBARA: Oh absolutely. I think that what the Syrian revolution has done is put pressure on the international community to declare Assad to be an illegitimate leader of Syria and it is the action of Bashar al-Assad and his cohorts and his regime that has escalated the rhetoric of the international community more and more.

I think that the lack of action on behalf of the security forces in Syria to protect American diplomats and Western diplomats is a clear indication that it's not orchestrated, it's clearly something that is condoned by Bashar al-Assad and his security thugs to send a message to the world that he does not care about being an outlaw.

ELEANOR HALL: And yet at the same time the Assad government is right now convening a dialogue on political reform in Damascus. Is there any chance of a political settlement at this stage?

YASER TABBARA: Unlikely, very highly unlikely. You have to realise that this so-called dialogue that has been commissioned by the Syrian government and the regime is basically a sham. This dialogue that they called for was boycotted by all major opposition figures in Syria and outside of Syria. It's basically a dialogue with the regime. It's a monologue.

ELEANOR HALL: Yaser Tabbara, you're clearly now a critic of the regime but you worked with Bashar al-Assad on democratic reform right up until these protests began. Why did you work for him and were you surprised at the way he responded to the protests?

YASER TABBARA: Just a point of clarification, I did not work for Bashar al-Assad, what I, I have always been a true believer in gradual democratic reform and I was among those who really had been calling on Bashar al-Assad to move forward and lead this country, lead your people into a peaceful, democratic transition.

A lot of free-thinking Syrians have been engaged with the Syrian government in the past to help on programs of development, long term development. My focus was on reforming the higher education system in Syria but again I made up my mind on March 15th and after I saw that they have demonstrated the most and utmost inhumanity in their bloody crackdown.

And that was the turning point for me and many, many free thinking Syrians that do not necessarily belong to an opposition movement pre-March 15th, which is the date that the Syrian revolution took place.

There was a measure of surprise, I'm not going to deny that. I think that yes he had a reputation of being a reasonable man, he had a reputation of being someone who is concerned of reform and he had a reputation of being somewhat civil, but he decided to shoot to kill protesters.

So far since March 15th, 1,500 people have been killed in cold blood, 20,000 people have been arrested. We have 1,000 forced disappearances. We have reports of mass graves. I mean this is, you know, has risen to a level of crimes against humanity. That is the sort of, you know, bloody dictator that Bashar al-Assad turned out to be.

ELEANOR HALL: Well you're now helping to build the case against the Assad regime at the International Criminal Court. Do you think Bashar al-Assad will take any notice of it?

YASER TABBARA: Look as late as last Friday there have been reports of about 3 million people on the streets of Syria. The situation has gotten to the point of no return, especially as the regime has its tanks and its guns pointed to the heads and chests of the Syrian people.

Those crimes we are saying amount through the international criminal law to crimes against humanity and as such we're asking the Security Council to refer the case of Bashar al-Assad and his regime to the International Criminal Court and we believe that that will put even more pressure on Bashar al-Assad and his regime to again minimise the casualties and shorten the period of that crackdown.

ELEANOR HALL: You think that he will actually listen?

YASER TABBARA: Well it's definitely a method of deterrence. I think that, you know, if it gets to the point where he will be looked at as an international outlaw and as someone who is wanted by international justice, I think he will come to his senses hopefully and realise that this is not going to only affect his grasp on power but is going to affect him personally and it's going to affect his future and the future of those around him.

In fact we feel that international criminal law and, you know, the tools that it employs are there to deter dictators such as Bashar al-Assad from committing these sort of crimes.

ELEANOR HALL: Now Yaser Tabbara, you worked with the regime until just before the protests began on reform from within. Now you're working against it. Do you feel personally in danger because of your involvement in this International Criminal Court case?

YASER TABBARA: Absolutely, without a question I feel in danger. In fact I have received a number of notifications that my name is on some sort of a black list and I've also received reports that my name has been reviewed and reported on in Syrian TV as one of these political traitors of Syria and the Syrian people.

I mean this is a reality that we are living through and I think we will continue to live through it until we see a free democratic Syria.

ELEANOR HALL: What do you fear that the regime could do to you?

YASER TABBARA: I do not put it beyond this regime to do anything. I mean we've just witnessed so much instability and brutality by, on behalf of this regime since March 15th and so again, this is the sort of regime we're dealing with.

ELEANOR HALL: Yaser Tabbara, thanks very much for talking to us.

YASER TABBARA: Thank you for having me.

ELEANOR HALL: Yaser Tabbara is the executive director of the Syrian American Council and you can listen to a longer version of that interview on our website.

Original link: Syrian reformer turned prosecutor fears retaliation

SA on Syria: Erring on the side of caution?

2011-07-12T08:51:00.001-05:00

A delegation of Syrian civil society and human rights activists spent last week in South Africa trying to persuade the government that a condemnation of the military crackdown on anti-government protesters in Syria is needed.

The United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 (2011), which includes an asset freeze, a no-fly zone and arms embargo, has not been backed by South Africa, and the delegation believes this view needs to change if the Syrian people are to be spared.

The delegation met with some success among local organisations, but said the South African government itself was unwilling to change its stance.

The aim of the meeting was to convince government to "condemn gross human rights violations" in Syria, said Najob Ghadbian at a press conference on Thursday.

A member of the newly-formed Syrian Opposition Consultative Council, Ghadbian said 1 350 people had been killed since demonstrations started on March 15. Human rights groups have said a further 15 000 have been detained, tortured or have disappeared.

The Syrian delegation met numerous people in government and civil society, including Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ebrahim Ebrahim.

Afterwards, they said: "Minister Ebrahim expressed concerns that the UN Security Council has been misused by Western powers as a tool for hegemony, and therefore South Africa was sceptical about supporting another resolution concerning an Arab regime."

The group noted that "the Syrian people should not be made to pay the price for international politicking and grandstanding. It is disappointing that the South African government does not seem to be reflecting the values and experiences of its nation."

Attempts to obtain comment from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation by the Mail & Guardian were unsuccessful.

A member of the delegation, Syrian-American human rights lawyer Yaser Tabbara, last week warned that a post-revolutionary Middle East could forget South Africa if it did not act now. "The Syrian revolution doesn't have any particular loyalties. However it will have loyalties [after the revolution succeeds] to the friends that come now," he said.

On the 'wrong side of history'
As a way to address South Africa's uncertainties with a UN resolution, the delegation has been insistent about the differences between Libya and Syria.

"This has been an overwhelmingly peaceful revolution that has been remarkable in its non-use of weapons," said Tabbara. He pointed out that the rebels in Benghazi had asked for military assistance, but in contrast Syrians "do not want any form of military intervention".

Peter Bouckaert, the emergency director of Human Rights Watch, said South Africa should use its "leadership of the global South" to put pressure on the other members of Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China) to pass the resolution.

By taking a "clear moral stance", he said the government would be able to press for a resolution that condemned the crackdown, as well as place sanctions on specific people in the regime.

Christina Abraham, civil rights director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, added that these actions would speed up the process of overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad and would "lessen the human and economic costs of our struggle".

Iyas Maleh, a Syrian human rights activist, said sanctions "targeting specific individuals" would put pressure on the Syrian leadership, while giving moderates support to do more. His father, Haytham al-Maleh, became a prominent revolutionary when he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for criticising the Syrian regime on television.

A crackdown on free speech has led to the banning of Facebook and other social media websites. As a result, the youth pushing the revolution have turned to YouTube, becoming journalists in the process, said Ghadbian. Some have died capturing footage of military atrocities and others have been tortured, he added.

In a recent incident, a 13-year-old boy was taken by authorities and tortured. His body was returned to his family after it had been shot, stabbed and mutilated. After being asked to film it, a neighbour put the footage on YouTube. With no independent media allowed in the country, Ghadbian said, this was the only way of getting their story out and was a way of recording every atrocity, he said.

The main Syrian ally in the Brics block, Russia, is already changing its stance, said Bouckaert. Its president, Dmitry Medvedev, has publicly condemned Assad's violent suppression of protests. Given this, Bouckaert said, it would be a great tragedy if South Africa found itself on the "wrong side of history" as democratic governments took over in the Middle East.

Testimony
Human Rights Watch supplied testimony of soldiers who defected from al-Assad's forces.

A member of Syria's security agencies, referred to locally as Mukhabarat, who was deployed in Syria's third-largest city, Homs, explained his scenario: "The protesters had sat down in the square. We were told to disperse them with violence if needed. We were there with air force security, army, and shabbiha [armed supporters of the government who do not belong to security forces].

"At around 3.30am, we got an order from air force security to shoot at the protesters. We were shooting for more than half an hour. There were dozens and dozens of people killed and wounded. Thirty minutes later, earth diggers and fire trucks arrived. The diggers lifted the bodies and put them in a truck. I don't know where they took them. The wounded ended up at the military hospital in Homs. And then the fire trucks started cleaning the square."

A conscript doing his military service in Damascus told Human Rights Watch: "Every night they used to summon us to a stadium-like place in the military barracks and made us watch Dunya TV [Syria's state channel] from a big TV screen. It was all scenes from Dara'a showing people killed by what they reported as foreign armed groups.

"Officers would repeatedly tell us that there is a 'foreign plot' going on in Dara'a. Watching Dunya TV every night between 8pm and 10pm, we had the firm belief that there is a foreign conspiracy against which we needed to fight and protect our people."

View YouTube videos of the Syrian protests here: video one, video two. WARNING: Videos contain explicit imagery.

Original post: SA on Syria: Erring on the side of caution?

Syrians plead with SA to condemn human rights violations: Video

2011-07-07T23:23:00.002-05:00

The South African government continues to oppose a UN Security Council resolution aimed at condemning the suppression of anti-government protests in the Arab Republic of Syria. South Africa, along with Brazil, Russia, India and China, are the only nations of the 15-member peace organisation who remain unconvinced that condemnation is necessary.

Original post: Syrians plead with SA to condemn human rights violations

NGOs want world prosecutor's "preliminary analysis" on Syria

2011-07-06T08:33:00.005-05:00

Syrian non-governmental organisations and lawyers Tuesday formally asked the International Criminal Court for a "preliminary analysis" of what they described as "crimes" committed in their country.

"We ask the prosecutor to lead a preliminary analysis of the crimes committed by the Syrian regime," said Yaser Tabbara, a lawyer and member of the US-based Muslim civil rights organisation CAIR.

Tabbara was part of a delegation which travelled to The Hague to drop off a message at the prosecutor's office.

More than 1,100 Syrian civilians have been killed by the Syrian regime since protests started in the country in March, Tabbara added, saying "murders and tortures, that is, crimes against humanity," have been committed.

"We have well and truly received the communication," Florence Olara, spokeswoman for the ICC prosecutor's office, told AFP.

"Now we have to see whether we have the jurisdiction on those crimes, which would be surprising, since Syria is not a State party to the Rome Statute," the ICC's founding treaty.

About 50 Syrians living in The Netherlands on Tuesday gathered before the ICC office, an AFP journalist saw.

The protesters, some carrying Syrian flags on their backs, demanded and end to violence in their home country as well as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's arrest: "We want Bashar in The Hague now!" and " Stop the butcher!" read some of their placards.

"The goal of our move here in front of the ICC is to put pressure on the regime," said Kawa Rashid, 38.

"If the prosecutor leads a preliminary analysis, the pressure will be there," he added.

Since Friday, at least 40 people have been killed in Syria, including 35 in a security sweep in Jisr al-Shughur, which was a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s and borders Turkey, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

But Syria's opposition movement keeps swelling despite the regime's repressive measures which have left more than 1,100 people dead, according to rights groups, and sparked worldwide condemnation and sanctions against key regime figures, including the president.

Established in 2002, the ICC is the world's first permanent, treaty-based court set up to try those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide if the accused's own country cannot or will not do so.

Original post: NGOs want world prosecutor's "preliminary analysis" on Syria

Syrian Opposition Remains Divided on Engagement

2011-07-05T08:46:00.002-05:00

By Samer Araabi

WASHINGTON, Jul 5, 2011 (IPS) - Despite countless attempts by the Bashar al-Assad regime to subdue the sporadic protests that have appeared across Syria since February, the demonstrations have consistently grown in both size and intensity.

Last week, a march in the town of Hama may have attracted over 100,000 protestors, quite likely the largest anti-Assad demonstration in Syria thus far.

While the opposition grows, however, its leadership remains bitterly divided, geographically disparate, and unable to agree on tactics to oust the Assad regime or a collective political vision for a post- Assad future.

As another round of crackdowns broke out this week, opposition figures in Syria and abroad have continued to battle one another on the central question of how to engage with the regime.

At a meeting last week in Washington hosted by the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the New American Foundation, policy analysts and international advocates met with Syrian American figures involved in the opposition movement to discuss the role of the international community in resolving the Syrian crisis.

A particularly passionate debate raged around the role of the United States in assisting the Syrian opposition movement. Some, such as international human rights lawyer Yaser Tabbara, argued that Washington was purposely pulling its punches, and could be doing much more to help.

Over the course of the morning, Tabbara called for tighter sanctions, stronger condemnations of government heavy-handedness, more international political leverage, and a direct appeal from President Barack Obama for a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government.

Others, including author and historian Mark Perry, gave words of support for the Syrian people, but asked the audience, "What should we do? Nothing. This is a revolution in the hands of the Syrian people."

Perry was confident in the "inevitability" of the revolution, but maintained that "a revolution is very difficult to stop, to influence, or to make succeed. They have their own internal dynamic."

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a professor at the College of William & Mary and the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, agreed that the U.S. had very limited leverage, and a very low willingness to use it.

He reminded attendees that all policy decisions "have to be considered in a bigger tapestry than just Syria", adding that "the U.S. strategic interests in the region are significant in other countries where there's turmoil going on. We have to handle this with finesse, in the scope of U.S. national interests, against a fiscal backdrop that's absolutely frightening. To ask [the Assad regime] for some kind of deadline without backing it up with the threat of force, or to ask for any more adamant position of the United States, is not useful."

Many others took a middle road, recognising that U.S. leverage was minimal at best, but certain small steps could be taken to assist the Syrian resistance without overextending Washington's reach.

Nuh Yilmaz, director of the Foundation for Political, Economic, and Social Research, tried to demonstrate Turkey's inclination to take a middle path by refusing to "have a civil war on its border" while trying to maintain relationships with both the Assad regime and the protest movement.

Yilmaz argued that it was in Turkey's strategic interest – and consequently, regional strategic interest – to ensure that Assad produces real reforms and that the opposition moderates their demands.

He emphasised the "need to be strategic" and make better use of the international community's limited leverage, but others were less willing to recognise any legitimacy for the Assad regime.

"The regime is inflexible, and therefore irredeemable," said Louay Safi, a member of the Syrian American Council. He urged the international community to "choke the security apparatus in Syria, make sure they're not getting any outside funding…and take legal action."

The disagreement on the fundamental question of foreign intervention comes as U.S. diplomats have struggled to chart a strategic course in Syria, often deciding on a middle ground that neither side finds particularly satisfying.

Last week, the State Department was rumoured to have put forward a "roadmap" for Syrian reforms that would allow Assad to remain in power while overseeing a number of democratic reforms in the country. The roadmap calls for the Syrian government to appoint a "transitional assembly" to oversee the instatement of open elections, the legalization of political parties, and the loosening of media restrictions.

Though Washington has denied pushing for the roadmap, a number of Syrian opposition members have claimed that official sources, including U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, have been encouraging the opposition to seek common ground with Assad.

Many figures, however, have openly condemned the roadmap, reiterating the idea that such reforms are "too little, too late", and calling for nothing less than the downfall of the regime and its Ba'ath party supporters.

These overtures for compromise, emanating from Turkey, and to a lesser extent, the U.S., may be beginning to have an effect on Assad. A large opposition meeting held in Damascus, with the permission of state authorities, was held last week at the Semiramis hotel, the first of its kind in decades.

More recently, government figures have openly invited representatives of the opposition for talks, another first.

The reaction to these developments has underscored the tension between those willing to work with the regime and those who have rejected it categorically.

Though many elements of the opposition blasted the Damascus meeting as a "government sanctioned-ruse", others hailed the gathering as deeply significant.

The divisions within the opposition have shown few signs of easing. Though many signs point to a significant weakening of the Assad regime, no movement as yet appears ready to replace it.

(END)

Original post: Syrian Opposition Remains Divided on Engagement

A Syrian-American in Chicago Fights for Democracy in his Homeland

2011-07-04T23:27:00.003-05:00

This Fourth of July, as Americans across the country celebrate the country’s freedoms, Syria’s government is cracking down on its citizens’ democratic rights. Syria’s government has sent tanks into the city of Hama, two days after tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated there, and called for an end to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The Government has cut off power and telephone lines, and arrested scores of people, in an attempt to suppress a movement that mirrors the upheaval in Tunisia and Egypt.

Original post: A Syrian-American in Chicago Fights for Democracy in his Homeland

Chicago Tribune: Chicago protesters rally against Syria's government

2011-07-03T23:10:00.002-05:00

By Dawn RhodesTribune reporter

8:40 p.m. CDT, July 3, 2011

A crowd of about 500 gathered in a downtown Chicago parking lot this afternoon to support anti-government protesters in Syria, just as worldwide media reported that military action in a western city stoked fears of more violence.

Leaders from Syrian and Islamic organizations in Chicago urged people to continue their stance against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which has been widely criticized for brutally quashing anti-government movements throughout the country.

“Bashar Assad is at war with his own people. He is at war with Syria. He is at war with Syrians,” said Yaser Tabbara, executive director of the Syrian American Council. “We are here to tell the world that we stand behind our brothers and sisters on the ground in Syria.”

Protesters lined the sidewalk holding signs that read “Stop Genocide” and “Assad = Hitler.” Young children stood alongside parents and friends, proudly waving the Syrian flag and chanting in Arabic.

“It’s not just a Syrian cause, it’s a cause for everyone who seeks freedom and equality,” said Kifah Mustapha, associate director of the Mosque Foundation. “It’s an Arab Spring, but it’s a righteous cause.”

The Syrian revolution follows in the footsteps of other popular uprisings in northern Africa and the Middle East. Thousands in Syria have been killed or wounded since protests began in March, according to the Syrian American Council.

In the past several weeks, dozens of people were reportedly killed in various cities as military forces opened fire on crowds. On Sunday, troops and tanks were reportedly surrounding the western city of Hama, the site of another violent crackdown when President Assad’s late father spearheaded an attack to crush an uprising in 1982.

“There’s always sacrifice for freedom. It’s not easy,” said Ahmad Jajeh, 53, of Lincoln Park who hails from Hama. “It’s time for us to live like the other free countries in the world.”

“We’re living in a world now where there is no room for totalitarianism, dictatorships and oppression,” said Christina Abraham, civil rights director for the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Chicago. “When we see these movements happening, we need to support them. We don’t give leeway to governments that violate human rights, like the Assad government is doing right now.”

While most protesters were focused on ousting Assad, Sherry Alhayek, 23, of Schaumburg said that getting new leadership was only half the battle.

“For me, the point is to get Syria to a higher point and not just getting rid of the regime,” she said. “I want a better future.”

Tabbara also took the time to imagine a post-Assad future as a CTA Brown Line train passed above.

“One day, we’re going to have a train like that in Syria, in Damascus. We’ll call it the Freedom Train,” he said to the crowd’s roaring approval.

“Once we get rid of this regime, we’re going to develop this country like we should.”

cdrhodes@tribune.com

Original post: Chicago protesters rally against Syria's government

Fighting the Syrian Regime From a Chicago Office

2011-07-03T09:20:00.000-05:00

Yaser Tabbara may live half a world away from Syria, where he grew up. But as the uprising there continues, the Chicago lawyer has mounted a one-man legal and diplomatic assault against the Syrian regime to highlight the brutality of its response and help depose President Bashar al-Assad.

In recent weeks, Mr. Tabbara, 35, attended opposition conferences in Turkey and Belgium, and spoke at policy forums in Qatar and Washington. He also built a case for the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to charge the Syrian government with crimes against humanity, and he helped draft a letter to the United Nations Security Council calling for urgent action -- all while communicating with protesters inside Syria and occasionally representing his law firm's clients in Chicago courts.

Few people would seem better qualified to lend external support to the uprising. A human rights lawyer born in Chicago and raised in Damascus, Mr. Tabbara has a long history of activism and is practiced in Western justice as well as in the ways of international courts and Syrian politics.

Since mid-March, Mr. Assad has turned his security and military forces loose on the protesters; activists say some 1,400 Syrians have been killed. Watching from afar, Mr. Tabbara said he had been motivated by "a very objective sense of outrage and a sense of responsibility that this country cannot be led by this Mafia-esque gang."

Such views represent a shift for a man who last year worked with an international organization to improve Syria's judicial and legal systems. Just months ago, he had been scheduled to meet with Asma al-Assad, the president's wife, to discuss the creation of a Syrian version of Teach for America, which trains prospective teachers who commit to spending two years in classrooms in cities and rural communities.

That meeting was canceled after the protests began, and Mr. Tabbara said he had changed his mind about trying to reform the system after he saw Syrian security forces shoot peaceful protesters and listened to the "insulting, conspiracy-minded" speeches of Mr. Assad.

"I've always been a firm believer that democracy doesn't happen overnight," Mr. Tabbara said. But the uprising in Syria, coming on the heels of the more peaceful regime-toppling revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, has convinced him that the process can be expedited.

"A lot of these gradual reforms, which had never been fulfilled, now have a chance," he said.

Ammar Bayrakdar, a Syrian physician who moved to the United States in 1990 and has been active in the sizable Chicago-area Syrian community, approves of the shift.

"Now he's trying to organize the opposition effort, and we support him," Dr. Bayrakdar said. "He's very knowledgeable and eloquent, and a sincere individual."

Local Syrian groups have organized forums, protests and rallies, and have backed e-mail campaigns to the White House, the Syrian ambassador and representatives in Congress.

Such activism is old hat for Mr. Tabbara, who moved back to the United States to attend college in the mid-'90s. After earning his law degree from DePaul University, he provided legal representation to Chicago-area Muslim and Arab communities after 9/11. He also spent a year teaching international human rights law at the University of Kalamoon in Damascus and working with local organizations to improve education in Syria.

Back in Chicago, in 2008, Mr. Tabbara was a founder of Zarzour, Khalil & Tabbara, a law firm started with fellow DePaul alumni that mainly assists nonprofit organizations and immigrants with legal issues. Last year he rolled out Project Mobilize, an organization that supports Muslim political candidates in the Chicago area.

Since the antigovernment protest began in Syria on March 15, the movement has spread across the country and has faced increasingly bloody suppression. Mr. Tabbara said he had been in regular contact with the leaders of groups organizing protests, as well as with friends, family and former students. Some among the latter three groups have been wary about supporting the movement, in part because many middle-class families have long relied on the regime for their welfare.

But that may be changing. "These groups will join the movement in large numbers soon," Mr. Tabbara predicted. "I know people that belong to that class who have been working very hard trying to mobilize people."

Some analysts believe that with dwindling financial resources and increasing international pressure, the Assad regime may be teetering.

At a news conference on Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, "It is absolutely clear that the Syrian government is running out of time."

Mr. Tabbara said he is confident the rebels will succeed. "These are not people willing to back down," he said. "They will not accept anything but a complete regime change."

He added that he is unsure of the impact he and others have had on the movement for change in Syria but that the effort is nonetheless worthwhile.

"I'd like to think we are raising awareness, spreading correct information about the revolution, informing governments and officials about what's taking place on the ground," Mr. Tabbara said. "It definitely counters the diplomatic activism the regime has been engaged in."

By David Lepeska
New York Times

Original post: Fighting the Syrian Regime From a Chicago Office

Fighting the Syrian Regime From a Chicago Office

2011-07-02T09:15:00.001-05:00

By DAVID LEPESKA

Published: July 2, 2011

In recent weeks, Mr. Tabbara, 35, attended opposition conferences in Turkey and Belgium, and spoke at policy forums in Qatar and Washington. He also built a case for the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to charge the Syrian government with crimes against humanity, and he helped draft a letter to the United Nations Security Council calling for urgent action — all while communicating with protesters inside Syria and occasionally representing his law firm’s clients in Chicago courts.

Since mid-March, Mr. Assad has turned his security and military forces loose on the protesters; activists say some 1,400 Syrians have been killed. Watching from afar, Mr. Tabbara said he had been motivated by “a very objective sense of outrage and a sense of responsibility that this country cannot be led by this Mafia-esque gang.”

Such views represent a shift for a man who last year worked with an international organization to improve Syria’s judicial and legal systems. Just months ago, he had been scheduled to meet with Asma al-Assad, the president’s wife, to discuss the creation of a Syrian version of Teach for America, which trains prospective teachers who commit to spending two years in classrooms in cities and rural communities.

That meeting was canceled after the protests began, and Mr. Tabbara said he had changed his mind about trying to reform the system after he saw Syrian security forces shoot peaceful protesters and listened to the “insulting, conspiracy-minded” speeches of Mr. Assad.

“I’ve always been a firm believer that democracy doesn’t happen overnight,” Mr. Tabbara said. But the uprising in Syria, coming on the heels of the more peaceful regime-toppling revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, has convinced him that the process can be expedited.

“A lot of these gradual reforms, which had never been fulfilled, now have a chance,” he said.

Ammar Bayrakdar, a Syrian physician who moved to the United States in 1990 and has been active in the sizable Chicago-area Syrian community, approves of the shift.

“Now he’s trying to organize the opposition effort, and we support him,” Dr. Bayrakdar said. “He’s very knowledgeable and eloquent, and a sincere individual.”

Local Syrian groups have organized forums, protests and rallies, and have backed e-mail campaigns to the White House, the Syrian ambassador and representatives in Congress.

Such activism is old hat for Mr. Tabbara, who moved back to the United States to attend college in the mid-’90s. After earning his law degree from DePaul University, he provided legal representation to Chicago-area Muslim and Arab communities after 9/11. He also spent a year teaching international human rights law at the University of Kalamoon in Damascus and working with local organizations to improve education in Syria.

Back in Chicago, in 2008, Mr. Tabbara was a founder of Zarzour, Khalil and Tabbara, a law firm started with fellow DePaul alumni that mainly assists nonprofit organizations and immigrants with legal issues. Last year he rolled out Project Mobilize, an organization that supports Muslim political candidates in the Chicago area.

But that may be changing. “These groups will join the movement in large numbers soon,” Mr. Tabbara predicted. “I know people that belong to that class who have been working very hard trying to mobilize people.”

Some analysts believe that with dwindling financial resources and increasing international pressure, the Assad regime may be teetering.

At a news conference on Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, “It is absolutely clear that the Syrian government is running out of time.”

Mr. Tabbara said he is confident the rebels will succeed. “These are not people willing to back down,” he said. “They will not accept anything but a complete regime change.”

He added that he is unsure of the impact he and others have had on the movement for change in Syria but that the effort is nonetheless worthwhile.

“I’d like to think we are raising awareness, spreading correct information about the revolution, informing governments and officials about what’s taking place on the ground,” Mr. Tabbara said. “It definitely counters the diplomatic activism the regime has been engaged in.”

david.lepeska@gmail.com

Original post: Fighting the Syrian Regime From a Chicago Office

WKSU: Kucinich: a matter of interpretation

2011-06-30T23:15:00.002-05:00

Syrian American Council says it finds it hard to believe that the representative's quotes about Syria were simply mistranslated
Story by Anna Staver

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich is saying that Syria’s official government news agency mistranslated his comments that appeared to praise Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Kucinich has been visiting Syria and Lebanon this week, and the Syrian Arab News Agency quoted him Tuesday as saying that Assad is beloved by his people and committed to reforms. More than a thousand Syrians have been killed since protests erupted in March.

Yaser Tabbara is the executive director of the Syrian American Council, and he says he is not buying Kucinich’s explanation.

Tabbara explains

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Tabbara says he and others in his community were shocked by the Cleveland congressman’s comments given what he calls Kucinich’s outstanding record on human rights issues. Kucinich has said he believes that a diplomatic solution is possible in Syria.

Original post: WKSU: Kucinich: a matter of interpretation

Syrian opposition blasts Rep. Dennis Kucinich

2011-06-29T23:30:00.002-05:00

By REID J. EPSTEIN | 6/29/11 12:26 PM EDT

The head of the largest U.S.-based Syrian opposition group on Wednesday accused Rep. Dennis Kucinich of grandstanding by meeting with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus and charged he was making “irresponsible, brash” statements about the situation in the country.

“Mr. Kucinich is jumping on the bandwagon of a hot issue right now without having the background information,” Yaser Tabbara, executive director of the Syrian American Council, told POLITICO.

He is, perhaps, taking a public relations opportunity, and unfortunately, despite his record of standing up for what’s principled and what’s right in terms of human rights abuses, he has gotten it severely wrong on Syria,” Tabbara added.

While Kucinich described his trip as a “fact-finding mission,” Tabbara, a Chicago attorney, said the situation in Syria is well known and called such a trip unnecessary.

“There is an international consensus as to what’s taking place in Syria constituting crimes of an international and grave nature of the Syrian regime,” Tabbara said. “Yet he makes these irresponsible, brash statements in support of the dictator ruling Syria and the person deemed to be an illegitimate president. It’s mind-boggling and confusing.”

Kucinich told CNN on Wednesday that he met with both the Assad government and opposition groups this week in Damascus.

“It’s really important that people who are involved with making policy meet with both sides,” he said.

Kucinich’s spokesman told POLITICO that the Ohio Democrat will seek to meet with the Syrian council upon his return to the U.S.

“I share the same concerns about the violence in Syria which the Syrian American Council rightly decries,” Kucinich said in a statement on Wednesday relayed by his spokesman. “I went to Syria to meet with as many parties as I could, including leaders in the opposition, people who are directly involved with trying to bring change to Syria. I also wanted to learn if President Assad was himself prepared to accept their just demands for freedoms and reforms.”

Louay Safi, chairman of the SAC, said Kucinich “probably was misled” before traveling to the country.

“He is lending legitimacy to a regime that has lost legitimacy,” Safi said. “This is for internal consumption. For many Syrians, if a congressman comes to see Assad, they think that he represents the government. … Living under a dictatorship, they think that anyone who meets with the president from congress is representative of the U.S. position on Syria.”

Kucinich, in the brief CNN interview, did not directly answer when asked whether his visit would legitimize the Assad regime.

“I met with the opposition. I heard what they had to say,” he said. “I met with the government. I heard what they have to say.”

Tabbara and Safi said Kucinich at no point has been in contact with their organization.

Original post: Syrian opposition blasts Rep. Dennis Kucinich

Kucinich's 'Mistranslation' Excuse, Unpacked

2011-06-29T08:26:00.001-05:00

URI FRIEDMANJUN 29, 2011

Three days into his unofficial "fact-finding" mission in Syria, Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich is beginning to feel the heat back home for meeting with Syria's Bashar al-Assad and appearing to defend the President amidst the regime's brutal response to the Syrian uprising. On Tuesday, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency quoted Kucinich as praising the regime for seeking to end the violence, characterizing Assad as "highly loved and appreciated by the Syrians," and telling reporters at his hotel that some foreign news outlets want to "give a wrong picture about what is going on in Syria."

In a statement on Tuesday, Kucinich claimed, rather vaguely, that SANA may have inadvertently "mistranslated" some of his remarks, perhaps in part because of the "degree of appreciation and affection their state-sponsored media has for President Assad"--hardly a ringing denunciation of the agency's report. Foreign Policy's David Kenner didn't buy that explanation, since he imagined Kucinich made his remarks in English and SANA wouldn't have had to translate them. In what appears to be the only other account of the press gathering, CNN's Hala Gorani, who is in Damascus on assignment, wrote on Twitter, "Kucinich said Assad sees himself as 'father of the country' and is really 'concerned' about situation."

How does Kucinich's office respond to Kenner's skepticism about the mistranslation claims? The congressman's communications director, Nathan White, tells The Atlantic Wire that while Kucinich made his remarks in English, the journalists he was speaking with were using Arabic-language translators. White assumes that the SANA story was written up in Arabic and translated back into English, though he can't confirm this assumption (indeed, there is an Arabic version of the story on SANA's website). White also can't confirm whether the journalists at the hotel were from SANA.

Meanwhile, a backlash is brewing. In an editorial today the congressman's hometown Cleveland Plain-Dealer writes that while Kucinich says he's in Syria to "promote peace"--a cause he's undoubtedly committed to--"that isn't the likely effect of accepting the Syrian government's invitation to visit when an unknown number of Syrian protesters are dead and 12,000 refugees have fled to Turkey. Kucinich is allowing Assad to use him as a propaganda tool. And not for the first time" (Kucinich also met with Assad in 2007 and praised him on Syrian TV for pursuing peace in Iraq).

Criticism is coming from both the left and the right. Salon's Justin Elliott notes that Kucinich's alleged statements about Syrians' love for Assad and the regime's efforts to end the violence contradict "the reported facts" on the ground. The American Spectator's John Tabin writes that "while I have no doubt that SANA made Kucinich's remarks sound more pro-Assad than they were, that hardly absolves him of responsibility for appearing in Damascus in the first place." In comments to The Daily Caller, the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin goes further: "Just as former Kennedy-era attorney general Ramsey Clark shilled for Ayatollah Khomeini, and British parliamentarian George Galloway shilled for Saddam Hussein, it seems that the Syrian dictator has found his useful idiot."

Salon raises another point: What does this incident mean for Kucinich's well-known anti-war credentials? If SANA's report is accurate, Elliott argues, "the congressman's reputation as someone who is serious about human rights will sustain serious damage." Politico situates the visit with Assad in a "string of eccentric incidents" involving the one-time presidential candidate. Kucinich's decision to "sue a House cafeteria over an olive pit that cracked his tooth has negatively affected his reputation," the paper writes, and "his April 2011 appearance on the Daily Show as a ventriloquist was seen by critics as bizarre." More recently, Kucinich has grabbed headlines for his opposition to President Obama's Libya campaign.

Update: Politico reports that there's another group mad at Kucinich: the Syrian-American Council, a U.S.-based Syrian opposition group. The organization's executive director, Yaser Tabbara, states that while Kucinich has a "record of standing up for what's principled and what's right in terms of human rights abuses," it's "mindboggling and confusing" that he's now "making these irresponsible, brash statements in support of the dictator ruling Syria and the person deemed to be an illegitimate president."

Here's a clip of Gorani's interview with Kucinich at his "press conference" in Damascus on Tuesday, which appears to have been more of an informal press gathering (in the clip, analyst Fouad Ajami also criticizes Kucinich):

Original post: Kucinich's 'Mistranslation' Excuse, Unpacked

Syrian group wants Rep. Dennis Kucinich to apologize for Syria comments

2011-06-29T08:22:00.001-05:00

By Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A Syrian American group on Wednesday urged Cleveland Rep. Dennis Kucinich to apologize the Syrian people for making comments it called "political propaganda" and "out of touch with reality" after he visited the embattled Middle Eastern country this week and met with its president and opposition leaders.

Syrian American Council executive director M. Yaser Tabbara of Chicago said in an interview that the nation's president, Bashar al-Assad, has "lost his legitimacy" because he "heads a regime that is engaged in severe and horrid human rights violations against his own people."

More than 1,000 people have been killed since anti-government protests began in Syria, and many more have been arrested.

Tabbara called Kucinich's assertion that people in Syria want Assad to remain in power and reform the government "clueless" and "very misinformed." He said Assad is responsible for atrocities committed by the armed forces, wants to stay in power at all costs, and is using Kucinich for propaganda purposes.

Kucinich met with Assad on Monday, and later told The Plain Dealer that Assad takes calls for change seriously and wants to address his people's concerns. In an emailed response to the Syrian American group's claims, Kucinich said he shares the concerns about violence that the group "rightly decries."

"I went to Syria to meet with as many parties as I could, including leaders in the opposition, people who are directly involved with trying to bring change to Syria," Kucinich said. "I also wanted to learn if President Assad was himself prepared to accept their just demands for freedoms and reforms."

He said "the importance of trying to reach out to obtain as many views as possible cannot be underestimated" and that he would be happy to speak with the group and other interested parties when he returns to the United States.

Kucinich says that a Tuesday report by Syrian's official government news agency, which claimed that he said Assad is "highly loved and appreciated by the Syrians" mistranslated his remarks.

He also said a State Department claim on Tuesday that his trip was arranged by the Syrian government was incorrect. The State Department issued a clarification on Wednesday, which said Kucinich "is traveling at his own instance and at the request of his constituents." His visit is financed by Cleveland's Arab American Community Center for Economic and Social Services. The group did not return requests for comment on Wednesday.

A Damascus-based participant in Kucinich's Tuesday meeting with political opposition members supported Kucinich's contention that many in Syria want Assad to stay in power and implement reforms.

Ibrahim Hamidi, the Damascus Bureau Chief for the pan-Arab newspaper Al-hayat, said in an email that he told Kucinich that Syria is "very different from Tunisia and Egypt."

"In these two countries, people went down to the street to change their presidents," said Hamidi, who stressed that he is not personally part of the opposition because he is an independent journalist. "But, in Syria, people and many of the opposition want President Assad to lead the reform process."

Another participant in Kucinich's meeting, Damascus engineer Salim Kheirbek, said in an email that Syrians seek "radical reforms to be done by the president," after a "national dialogue."

"After almost four months of demonstrations and violence, the demonstrators couldn't throw out the regime and at the same time the regime couldn't finish with the protesters the matter which led to a national crises," said the email from Kheirbek, who was jailed by the Syrian regime for a dozen years.

Kheirbek said opposition members believe having Assad implement reforms makes sense because he's legally Syria's president, "and this is the only way (until now) to do reforms safely and keep the country far from chaos and unknown destiny."

"We ask to have Mr. Assad to be implementing the reforms in a certain transition period not because this is good for the president but because this is good for Syria and its people," Kheirbek's email said. He said the fact that some people in Syria like Assad "should not neglect the other fact that there are much more people who ask for radical changes which should transfer Syria from its dictatorship regime to democratic, multiple parties, etc . . . Syria with free people."

Original post: Syrian group wants Rep. Dennis Kucinich to apologize for Syria comments

CNN.com: Syrian ambassador to France denies having resigned

2011-06-08T08:41:00.001-05:00

By the CNN Wire Staff

Paris (CNN) -- Syria's ambassador to France, Lamia Shakkour, denied Tuesday that she has resigned her post, declaring late in the day that she would remain in her job until President Bashar al-Assad no longer wants her to remain in it.

"At no moment have I thought about doing anything other than serving my country," she told CNN affiliate BFM in an interview carried out in front of a picture of Assad at the Syrian Embassy in Paris.

Shakkour's status had been in doubt since the afternoon, when the television network France 24 broadcast a telephone interview from a woman it identified as Shakkour. During the interview, the woman said she was resigning because of violence in Syria.

"I cannot support the cycle of extreme violence ... ignore the young men, women and children who have died," she said.

But that interview was quickly followed by another telephone interview, broadcast on Syrian state TV, in which a woman also identifying herself as Shakkour denied having resigned, saying, "I am an integral part of this nation."

The woman in the Syrian interview said she plans to sue the French news channel and give the proceeds to the children of "martyrs."

That threat was repeated in Shakkour's BFM interview, which was carried out on camera. "I am filing a complaint to the French tribunal and also to the international tribunal, and there will probably be some measures against France 24," she said.

Shakkour denounced what she said was France 24's misrepresentation of her. "It was a lie," she said. "I accuse them of misinterpretation, false information, misuse of my identity and passing messages under my name."

Shakkour accused the network of following an agenda. "It's part of a campaign of misinformation by France 24, since the beginning of March, in which it gives voice only to dissidents of Syria and it falsifies videos."

In an interview with CNN carried out after the two dueling telephone interviews but before the BFM on-camera interview, France 24's deputy editorial director, Renee Kaplan, called the situation "very puzzling."

Kaplan said her network had invited Shakkour to be a guest on Tuesday night's program, which focused on Syria. "She has been a guest on our network before," said Kaplan, who added that station personnel reached Shakkour on a cell phone number that she had answered in the past.

Asked about Shakkour's later statement that she was not planning to resign, Kaplan said, "Something may have occurred between the time she made the declaration on our network and the time she made the declaration on another network."

Kaplan added, "We are confident that the person we addressed on air was she. There is no other reason to believe that anyone else would have answered on the number."

The confusion came the day before the U.N. Security Council is to discuss a proposed resolution regarding Syria. It was not clear when a vote on the resolution would take place, though Britain and France have said they would like it to take place by Friday.

The Security Council has been criticized for failing to act to stem the violence in Syria. Russia blocked a previous French-British resolution on Syria.

On Tuesday, a delegation of representatives from Syrian and international human rights groups visited the International Criminal Court to press for an investigation into human rights abuses in Syria. The Hague, Netherlands-based court has conducted a similar investigation in Libya.

The group asked ICC officials to review evidence of alleged abuses in the nation, which has been wracked by anti-government protests and a government crackdown for nearly three months.

It is hoping that investigators will determine that crimes could have been committed, a conclusion that might pressure the U.N. Security Council to refer the case to the ICC.

"The international community has to do something to prevent this," said M. Yaser Tabbara, a Chicago attorney working with human rights groups. "Pressure has to be mounted."

An ICC spokesman confirmed that the delegation submitted information and that it will review whether the court has jurisdiction in the case.

The issue of ICC involvement in the Syrian situation has been broached by others, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Australia's foreign minister.

"It must also take decisive action and refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court," Philip Luther, Amnesty International's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said Monday.

"Those responsible for the brutal crackdown of pro-reform protesters must no longer be allowed to get away with murder," he said.

However, getting the Syrian case before the ICC would not be easy.

Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, meaning the court has no jurisdiction over crimes committed in Syria by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

But intervention by the ICC on the alleged crimes committed in Syria could occur, Tabbara said.

Under one scenario, Syrian authorities could simply accept the jurisdiction of the court, he said.

The court also would have jurisdiction if people who committed the alleged crimes in Syria or victims of Syrian abuses are citizens of a country that is a signatory to the Rome Statute, he said.

And the U.N. Security Council could decide to refer the situation to the court.

Tabbara said the delegation met with Mark Dillon, the head of the ICC prosecutor office's information and evidence unit.

The group provided a formal "communication" under an article of the Rome Statute with evidence of abuses and asked the court to pursue the "necessary preliminary examinations and analysis" of alleged crimes.

Tabbara is hoping that ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will determine that what is occurring in Syria amounts to a systematic campaign of crimes against humanity.

If he does, it could "highlight the seriousness of the situation internationally" and pressure the Security Council to refer the case to the ICC.

Tabbara noted that Libya also is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, but the U.N. Security Council referred the case to ICC jurisdiction after seeing evidence of alleged crimes there.

The delegation included family members of victims who have been killed on camera and who have a pending lawsuit in U.S. courts against the Syrian regime.

The activists said they have documented more than 1,168 deaths, 3,000 injuries, 893 forced disappearances, 11,000 arbitrary detentions and the existence of mass graves.

Among the groups that signed the communication are the Syrian National Organization for Human Rights, the Syrian Center for Human Rights Studies, the Union of Syrian Kurds in the Netherlands, and Insan, a human rights groups.

Criticism of Syria mounted Tuesday after scores of people died in recent days in the cities of Hama and Jisr Al-Shugur.

The British Foreign Secretary William Hague told parliament on Tuesday that al-Assad is "losing legitimacy" and should "step aside."

He added that the Britain is working to persuade other countries to lobby for U.N. Security Council sanctions against Syria.

Original post: Syrian ambassador to France denies having resigned

Syrian groups ask Hague court to probe killings

2011-06-07T08:30:00.000-05:00

* Rights groups present evidence to war crimes court

* NGOs asked court to assess crimes against humanity

* ICC has no jurisdiction in non-member state Syria

By Svebor Kranjc

THE HAGUE, June 7 (Reuters) - Syrian and international human rights groups urged the world's top war crimes prosecutor on Tuesday to investigate the killing of more than 1,000 civilians during protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The prosecutor's office at the International Criminal Court said it had received the request but its jurisdiction could only cover crimes committed in Syria by nationals of ICC member states.

"We have documented a large number of deaths, injuries, forced disappearances and arbitrary detentions," said U.S-based lawyer Yaser Tabbara.

"These are crimes that can be categorised as crimes against humanity as they were state policy, widespread and systematic."

Syrian and international rights groups say they have drawn hope from the ICC prosecutor's speed in calling for the arrest of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and others over the violence in Libya, and a willingness to investigate Ivory Coast and Kenya.

Damascus has not signed the 2002 Rome Statue that set up the court, which means the ICC does not have jurisdiction in Syria, unless the U.N. Security Council refers it to the court.

Amnesty International called on the Security Council to refer Syria to the ICC.

"Given the violence that existed in Libya at the time and the evidence in respect to the commission of crimes in Syria, I think that the situation in Syria is just as serious, if not more so," said Philip Luther at Amnesty International.

European calls to have the U.N. Security Council formally rebuke Syria stalled in May when it became clear Russia would use its veto, but France says it is ready to ask for a draft resolution despite Russia's threat. [nN06298313]

Assad has made some reformist gestures, such as issuing a general amnesty to political prisoners and launching a national dialogue, but the NGOs hold him, his brother Maher al-Assad and intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk responsible for the deaths.

"I escaped from Syria in 1981, when I was 17. I've been in a foreign country for 30 years now, while the regime in Syria is still the same," said Ibrahim Akkari, one of a small group of protestors who accompanied Tabbara to the ICC in The Hague to present the request. "Our people have had enough of it." (Additional reporting by Aaron Gray-Block in Amsterdam)

Original post: Syrian groups ask Hague court to probe killings

Worldview: In Turkey, anti-Assad Syrians plan for the future

2011-06-03T22:50:00.003-05:00

by Worldview Jun. 03, 2011

The estimates so far are that several dozen people have died today in protests in Syria. Today’s protests were dedicated to the “children of freedom.”

At least 30 children have died in Syria’s protests so far, most notably 13-year-old Hamza al Khatib. The videos of his tortured body may prove a turning point in the effort to oust Assad. Syrian opposition leaders have met this week in Turkey to start a road map to a post-Assad Syria.

From Turkey, Chicago attorney and democracy activist Yaser Tabbara discusses the latest in Syria.

Original post: Worldview: In Turkey, anti-Assad Syrians plan for the future

Al Jazeera English: Protesters 'killed' in Syrian town

2011-06-02T09:03:00.002-05:00

Crackdown in Rastan continues, as opposition conference ends with declaration demanding Syrian president's resignation.

Syrian security forces have killed at least 13 civilians in the latest crackdown on pro-democracy protests, rights groups say, as opposition leaders meeting in Turkey called for president Bashar al-Assad to step down and lay the framework for democratic elections to be held within a year.

Security forces, backed by tanks, have laid siege to the central town of Rastan since Sunday in an effort to crush protests against Assad's rule there.

The 13 civilians were killed by gunfire from snipers and security forces storming Rastan, which is under curfew, said Ammar Qurabi, the head of the Syrian Organisation for Human Rights, and Razan Zaitouna, a lawyer.

Earlier, Zaitouna said that 41 people had been killed in the town, including a four-year-old girl who was killed as security forces shelled neighbourhoods on Tuesday.

Five of the victims were buried in Rastan on Wednesday, she said. Syrian forces also killed nine civilians on Tuesday in the town of Hirak, according to Qurabi.

Syrian state media reported that four soldiers were killed by "armed terrorist groups" in Rastan on Wednesday were buried on Thursday.

"We have become refugees in our own country,'' a resident of Rastan told the AP news agency. He said that he had fled his home in the centre of the town to escape arrest and was now sleeping in the woods.

"My family and sisters are still there, and I don't know how they are doing,'' he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Call for Assad's exit

At the conference in the Turkish city of Antalya, Syrian opposition activists called for Assad to resign immediately and cede powers to his vice-president.

"The delegates have committed to the demands of the Syrian people to bring down the regime and support the people's revolution for freedom and dignity," said a communique issued by 300 delegates at the conclusion of the two-day meeting, which brought together various opposition groups, activists and
independent figures, some from inside Syria.

The opposition also decided to establish a 31-member council to act as an international representative for protesters in Syria, reported Mohamed Vall, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Antalya.

Abrahim Miro, a Syrian activist of Kurdish ethnicity who was at the conference, said the committee "is represented by all the factions, all different ethnic groups and all different religions", adding that "it must show the world that they can make a strong voice to support the revolution inside Syria".

"They have to show the world that they are capable of being the face of this revolution in Syria," he told Al Jazeera.

The communique issued by the conference attendees also opposed any foreign intervention in Syria from outside powers, such as has been seen in Libya.

About 50 Assad supporters demonstrated outside the conference venue on Thursday, brandishing posters of the Syrian president and branding the opposition as being "on the payroll of the United States and Israel".

'National dialogue'

President Assad has recently launched a "national dialogue", pledging to free hundreds of political prisoners and promising to investigate the killing of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb in an attempt to blunt growing anger.

State television said Assad had set up a committee and charged it with "formulating general principles of dialogue that will open the way for the creation of an appropriate climate in which the different elements can express themselves and present their proposals".

The opposition has previously dismissed calls for dialogue, saying that this can take place only once the violence ends, political prisoners are freed and reforms adopted.

The demand that prisoners be freed was partially met on Wednesday when, according to a rights activist, hundreds of detainees were released from prisons across the country under an amnesty declared by Assad on Tuesday.

Washington, which has been increasing pressure by slapping sanctions on key regime members, said the release of "100 or so political prisoners does not go far enough".

"The release of some political prisoners is not the release of all political prisoners. We need to see all political prisoners released," Mark Toner, the US state department deputy spokesman, told reporters.

Amnesty exclusions

Human rights organisations have echoed this sentiment.

Al Jazeera's Mohamed Vall reports from Antalya

"Hundreds of people have been released," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.

"Fifty of them are from Baniyas, including the 76-year-old poet Ali Derbak," he added, but "thousands of political prisoners remain in jail and are to be released at any time".

"Leaders of the communist Labour Party were unable to benefit from the amnesty as the decree excluded people convicted of joining an organisation to change the social and economic status of the state," Rahman said.

More than 1,100 civilians have been killed and at least 10,000 arrested since protests against Assad's autocratic government erupted in mid-March, Human Rights Watch said.

Speakers at the Turkey conference said Assad's amnesty offer did not go far enough and came too late. "We demanded this amnesty several years ago," Abdel Razak Eid, an activist from the Damascus Declaration, a reformist group launched in 2005 to demand democratic change, said. "But it's late in coming."

A mobile video by one of the delegates showed the delegates vowing not to end dialogue until Syria's people were free.

Assad's legitimacy 'nearly out'

Other international responses to the presidential decree were tepid at best, though US secretary of state Hillary Clinton did say on Thursday that her country believed that Assad's legitimacy has "nearly run out".

Clinton also indicated that there was a lack of international consensus on how to move forward in order to appear on "the right side of history".

Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, has demanded "more ambitious and bolder" action from Syria. "I fear that it might already be too late," he told France Culture radio.

Turkey, while not dismissing the decree outright, also asked for deeper change.

Meanwhile in Syria, residents called for nationwide protests to take place on Friday, to commemorate the nearly 30 children killed during the uprising.

Syria has denied that a boy aged 13, whom opposition activists say died under torture, had been abused by security forces, labelling the accusations as lies.

A medical report published by Syrian official media said three bullets killed teenager Hamza al-Khatib and that other apparent wounds on his body were due to decomposition, not security force brutality.

Coroner Akram al-Shaar indicated that there was a period between the initial inspection and the handover of the corpse which was presided over by a legal commission including the judge.

"The report closes the door on the lies and allegations and shows the truth," the state-run news agency SANA said.

The activists said the boy had disappeared since taking part in a demonstration in the southern region of Daraa on April 29, which he decided to join after police killed his cousin.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has said that at least 30 children have been killed by gunfire since the revolt began. The government insists the unrest is the work of "armed terrorist gangs" backed by foreign agitators.

Original post: Protesters 'killed' in Syrian town

ORSAM: An Interview with Yaser Tabbara

2011-06-01T23:19:00.001-05:00

SYRIAN OPPONENTS - 3: AN INTERVIEW WITH SYRIAN HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER AND ACTIVIST YASER TABBARA

In addition to the participants from Syria in the “Change in Syria Conference”, organized in Antalya; opponents, most of whom have to live in Europe, in the U.S., and in Arab countries, participated in the conference as well. We talked to the Syrian activist Yaser Tabbara, who lives in the U.S., who is the member of the human rights organization called “CAIR-Chicago”, an also who is working as an human rights lawyer in his own office in the U.S., on the Conference and the future of Syria, in Antalya. Although the activities of the activists, who live in the U.S. and in Europe, are limited in Syria, they assume a major role in grabbing the attention of the world public opinion towards Syria, and in providing an international pressure on the Assad regime.

ORSAM: Could you introduce yourself for ORSAM readers?

Yasser Tabara: My name is Yasser Tabara. I’m a Syrian American attorney. I’ve been practicing law for almost ten years in Chicago. I was born in Chicago, raised in Damascus and then went back to the United States. I studies Political Science and my focus was International Human Rights and Civil Rights Law. I established is a civil rights organization for the defense of the rights of Arabs and Muslims live in the United States in Chicago. Right now I have a law office.

What is your position in the opposition who is gathering here today?

I don’t think it is accurate to call it an opposition gathering, in fact I think what this gathering has proven to the entire world that the position of the Syrian regime and the criminality of the regime is a mainstream position. It is no more a marginal opposition. You know, the Syrian opposition has always been described as disorganized, fragmented, basically weak and non-existent in Syria. Whether it is true or not, it is not what I’m going to get into. My point is that the perception of the opposition by the outside world reflected on the anti-regime position. That’s not true, because there are many free-thinking Syrians that were independent and did not belong to a political group and did not have a political agenda. Basically, those people came together from all over the world to send a very strong message that “We are in support of the Syrian Revolution”. This is something that this conference accomplished.

The committee which is planning to be established will have division among the opposition groups, and some of them are Muslim Brotherhood and Kurds. What do you think about that?

Think that’s another misperception or misconception about this conference. I think this conference is in no way intending to form a transitional council like the one we saw in Libya. This conference specifically is to do one thing only and that is basically support the Syrian Revolution inside the practical and pragmatic steps. And this step is to create a coordinating council; a committee, not even a council. That is basically to bring the Syrian activists from all over the world. There have been a lot of efforts that take place by Syrians in the US, Europe, in Arab countries, all over the world. But these efforts have not been coordinated very well. This conference is attempting to achieve coordination and synchronicity between all these activists, so they maximize the effect of their work. So the results out of this conference is to ensure the continuity of the work of this coordination, we need some sort of a coordinating body. That coordinating body is going to be a committee which is to be elected. There are a number of ways for us to pick that committee and the most popular way that people have agreed upon is to elect. Obviously through voting, you want to ensure that everybody is represented, classic opposition figures, the Muslim Brotherhood, or the Kurds, etc. So that it could be a truly representative committee.

How do you find the conference? Can you find a common ground between different opposition groups?

When I first came to this conference, I had very low expectations. I think I was very pleasantly surprised for a number of reasons. One was to see that amount of division, this sort of perceived problems, visions, predicted that this is going to fail because people were shouting marches and all that stuff. That actually did not take place. It’s been surprisingly civilized and productive. Yes, there are egos, there are people who are classic leaders and do not like to work with others but that has been overshadowed, in my opinion, by the presence of the youth, who is here without an agenda, with only one idea in mind that is to work. There is a lot of youth that you might have observed that is here to do exactly that. The other thing that is happening is to establish a number of workshops, committees to basically discuss ways to coordinate, for example the legal coordination agenda, the preservation of evidence, so that we could put together legal cases. Other areas of media activism, organizing protests basically comes out fully coordinated to bring together tens of thousands, hopefully hundreds of thousands Syrians together across the world at the same time in support of the Syrian Revolution. So a lot of these action items are being produced. That is the second thing that is pleasantly surprising to me as well.

I experienced another conference in another Arab country and when I attend that conference, I can feel that they want revolution. They come together and work. But in this conference, they are trying but they are different. Now I can’t really feel they want to do something together towards revolution. Maybe this is the first time they come together to talk something. But I don’t feel that they want revolution. I joined the Druze meeting in Lebanon, I felt that everybody is thinking the same thing.

This is the first time in the modern history of Syria that you have people from many different backgrounds. Syria is an extremely rich mosaic of religions, ethnic backgrounds, political ideologies, and it has always been said that those who basically stock the fear of sectarianism talk about that the alternative to Basher Assad’s regime is terrible or bleak, we don’t have any future, and we don’t have any hope. But this conference has demonstrated that despite all of these differences we still come together, we still meet we still put together, we are doing our workshops, and we are working towards common action. I would encourage you to attend some of the workshops that take place today. I think what you have observed is the political side of this conference. Any political process is an adversarial process. This group has a particular agenda that it seeks to pass, that group is represented heavily than that, you see the give-and-take. My view is that is a healthy demonstration. The Syrians are meeting for the first time in many years in a democratic process. Of course you are going to see some give-and-take, some conflicts, but nothing is basically developing into disastrous situations. We haven’t seen a disaster. We haven’t seen someone leaving the conference and saying “this is not what I hoped”. We haven’t seen that. And honestly I expected that. I’m very happy and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Do you want to give some message to Turkish government and people?

My first and foremost message is that I think everyone in this conference will be repeating the same exact message. Everyone is extremely grateful to the Turkish people for hosting us, for taking us in, for understanding our plight, for supporting our cause and for opening their country to us like this. This is highly politicized situation; we understand that this is not a very pleasant and easy situation for Turkish people and government. We completely appreciate that. Some people were worried yesterday at dinner that somebody announced the Syrian regime announced amnesty to all political prisoners and the immediate reaction was a demonstration. The demonstration basically said that it was too little and too late. At the end of the demonstration, the protesters made a point “Shukran, shukran Turkiyya”. Everybody was saying it in one voice. That truly reflected the sentiment of the people here. Now on a political level, we would like Turkish government to take even a harsher stance on Basher Assad’s government. We told them what you have done so far is amazing, but you need to take a step further. That step is to call the Assad regime unequivocally an illegitimate leader of Syria to ask the Assad regime to step down and to give weight to democratic process.

Thank you very much.

* This interview was carried out during the “Change in Syria Conference”, which was organized in Antalya, on June 1st 2011, by Prof. Dr. Veysel Ayhan, ORSAM Middle East Advisor; and Oytun Orhan, ORSAM Middle East Expert.

Original post: Orsam: An Interview with Yaser Tabbara

Syrian-Americans Press Washington on Syria

2011-05-30T09:10:00.001-05:00

BY THE WORLD

The repression in Syria continues and so do the protests. Syrian-Americans are pressing Congress and the State Department to step up the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad. But they do not want the US to intervene militarily. Assia Boundaoui reports. Download MP3

Original post: Syrian-Americans Press Washington on Syria

Syrian-Americans watch from afar as reports of violence grow

2011-05-12T08:37:00.004-05:00

By Catherine E. Shoichet and Joe Sterling, CNN

(CNN) -- Videos posted online show tanks in Syrian streets, scrambling crowds and the menacing sounds of sniper fire.

On the other side of the world, Syrian-Americans say they are watching in anguish, haunted by what they see and hear.

"You hear people screaming for help, and you can identify the accent," said Yaser Tabbara, a 35-year-old attorney in Chicago who was raised in Syria's capital, Damascus.

"It's been very traumatizing for me and my family to see all these things," he said. "To see all of that, and to know that you can do very little about it from outside Syria, is a very demoralizing and frustrating position to be in."

Word of a brutal crackdown by government security forces began to trickle out soon after anti-government protests began in mid-March. Since then, human rights groups say more than 775 people have been killed.

CNN has not been granted access into Syria and is unable to independently verify those claims, videos posted online or witness accounts.

Syrian-Americans say they also struggle to find out what's happening, frantically searching for news online and calling family and friends in Syria.

"They're too scared. ...They don't say anything on the phone. You really can't. Phones are monitored. Everything's monitored," said Mohammed, an American of Syrian descent who lives in the Chicago area.

He asked that his last name not be used, fearing his extended family in Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, could face repercussions.

"There's a sense of helplessness. We try to bring the attention of the international community to what's going on. That's the only thing Syrian-Americans can do to deal with the problem," said Mohamed T. Khairullah.

The 35-year-old mayor of Prospect Park, New Jersey, wrote an op-ed in his local newspaper, criticizing the "violent repression" of Syrian President Bashar al-Ashad's regime. In Syria, he wrote, people can't speak out at government meetings or write letters to the editor.

"The only thing they can do now is protest peacefully. That protest is being documented via social media for the world to see the atrocities of the Syrian forces," he wrote.

Khairullah said the news has sharply divided the large Arab community in the area where he lives, and many people are still struggling to understand the situation.

"People don't know whether to go with or against (the government), and they don't know what the future might hold," he said.

The members of the Syrian American Club in Washington are also split, according to Munif Atassi, the social club's president.

"I've seen people on either side, and I've seen people in the middle. The majority of people are right in the middle, praying for the conflict to end," said Atassi, 57.

Friends and family he's spoken with in Syria also have divergent opinions, he said.

"Frankly, they don't know what to believe anymore. ... The people I talk to, they believe that there is propaganda and lying coming from both sides," he said.

For weeks, it seemed the world's attention was focused elsewhere, said Hosam Hamadah, 47, of Houston. When he couldn't find enough information about the situation in news reports, the small-business owner said he turned to online social networks.

Now Hamadah is glued to Facebook, searching for updates and posting videos of the violence that he receives from acquaintances in Syria.

Even from thousands of miles away, deciding to speak out about the situation was difficult, he said.

"It took me a while before I made up my mind. Then I realized, if I don't do this and the next guy won't do this, nobody's going to say anything," he said. "Somebody has to say something. Me and my family, we're not better than the people that are getting killed in the streets."

Original post: Syrian-Americans watch from afar as reports of violence grow

The World: Young Arab-Americans and the ‘Arab Spring’

2011-05-09T23:03:00.005-05:00

By Assia Boundaoui

Download MP3

Arab-Americans have, understandably, been avid followers of news about the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Many first generation Arab-Americans fled to the US to escape political repression in their home countries.

Now, they see the Arab world changing dramatically. Two dictators have been toppled. Others seem to be teetering.

The so-called Arab Spring is causing Arab-Americans to reconsider their hyphenated identities.

At a recent roundtable in Chicago, second generation Arab-American activists, students and artists discussed the conflicts of identity that revolutions half-way across the world, are forcing them to confront.

Many second generation Arab-Americans have grown up on stories of the home-land their parents fled. They sought political asylum from repression and corruption in countries they loved, but felt they could no longer live in. Waves of Arabs escaping political oppression immigrated to the United States from the Middle East and North Africa in the 1970s and 80s.

Now, nearly three decades later, these young Arab-Americans are being confronted with a fundamentally existential question: “If we’re here because our parents fled repressive, undemocratic regimes … and those regimes no longer exist, well then – shouldn’t we go back?”

“It’s still bizarre, it’s still like a dream to even discuss, ‘can we possibly live there?’” asked Abdullah Fadhli, an artist who was born and raised in the US whose parents fled Libya in 1980 to escape Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
“My father didn’t come here willingly. He was an exile from the get-go. Libyans wanted to live in Libya, these people came here unwillingly, they love their country. My father hasn’t seen his family in over 30 years, I’m sure he’s going to go back.”

Ahlam Said, a Yemeni-American political organizer and activist, said as much as she might want to go back if things in Yemen change; her dual identity actually complicates things.

“Going back to Yemen, when you told people you were American-Yemeni, they’d sort of like smirk at you and go ‘emm, okay, yeah,’ Said said.

“I wasn’t raised in Yemen, I was born in Yemen, and I came here at the age of two, and now all of a sudden I’m beginning to enter into a world where I want to be closer to my Yemeni identity, I want to understand what’s going on, I want to be involved. But you know, I know there’s going to be a struggle if I go back, because now my identity is going to be challenged.”

’Arab-enough?’

This question of being “Arab-enough” quickly transforms into a conversation about identity. In a room of nine Arab-Americans, every one has handles their hyphenated status differently.

Yaser Tabbara, a Syrian-American, was born in Chicago and grew-up in Damascus before returning to the US as a teenager. He said that politically, Syrian and American identities are perceived to be in conflict.

But they’re not.

“After all Syria has been classified as one of the Axis of Evil by America for a long time,” Tabbara said. “But I truly don’t feel a schism between the two identities. As an American, I’m very comfortable supporting the pro-democracy movement in Syria and in the Arab World, after-all that is a fundamentally American value.”

Iraqi-American Laith Saud said he’s not especially torn about his hyphenated status. In fact, he no longer considers himself an “Arab-American.”

“I’m beginning to look at this in a totally different way. I’m beginning to consider myself an American Arab. I was born in Baghdad but I grew up here, for me to be as Iraqi as an Iraqi, is absurd. I’m an American. But I happen to be an Arab one,” Saud said.

Ahmed Rehab, an Egyptian-American activist who flew to Cairo last month to participate in the Egyptian revolution, wants to get rid of the hyphenation all together. He said he is fully American and fully Arab, and that hyphenating those two identities is unnecessary.

“I can be an American, I can be an Egyptian, I can be an Arab,” he said. I have the capacity of being all three, they’re not hyphenated. One does not qualify the other. When I go vote as an American I don’t chisel hieroglyphics on my ballot card. And when I’m in Egypt, chanting in Tahrir Square with everybody else, I’m not saying, “Yeah Freedom.” I’m chanting in Arabic, the same slogans. I fully relate to these people there and they relate to me.”

A sticky situation

Yemeni-American Ahlam Said said that beyond just a categorization, her hyphenated identity has complicated the question of who she represents when she wants to speak her mind. She calls it a sticky situation.

“Am I speaking on behalf of America, or am I speaking on behalf of Yemen?” Said said. “And what are Yemenis going to be thinking about this, are Americans going to basically challenge my allegiance to America? I myself, after I send out a tweet, I’m like ‘oh crap what are people going to think?’ Because I’m not there, and I don’t know what’s really going on. At the end of the day it’s my passion to see people living dignified lives, you know that’s what I want, that’s what I can identify with.”

Khalil Marrar, a Palestinian-American professor and writer, said his hyphenated identity is associated with a feeling of guilt.

“I feel guilty, as a person of Palestinian descent, who lives in America and enjoys the relative freedom we enjoy here,” Marrar said. “I feel really guilty about my Palestinian brothers and sisters living under occupation. I feel really guilty about my Egyptian brothers and sisters that live(d) under the Mubarak regime.”

Whatever their feelings on being “hyphenated-Americans,” all of these men and women agree that they want to play a role in the wave of change taking place in the Arab world, whether or not that means actually moving there. But in a generational twist of poetic justice, some will make the leap and return to the countries their parents were forced to abandon, decades ago.

Original post: The World: Young Arab-Americans and the ‘Arab Spring’

Syria update: Yaser Tabbara, City-By-City Update

2011-05-02T22:56:00.002-05:00

MIDEAST REPORTS | MONDAY, MAY 2, 2011 AT 03:34PM

Below is Part II of the Mideast Reports interview with Yaser Tabbara last Friday. The first part can be found here.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK-9Pe2VCgM&w=480&h=390]

Mr. Tabbara grew up in Damascus and is now a lawyer at Zarzour, Khalil, & Tabbara LLC. In law school he was research assistant to Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, International Law Scholar and Noble Peace Prize Nominee. Mr. Tabbara is a prominent member in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). To follow his latest activities including media appearances and publications, visit his blog.

City-by-City Update:
Here are notes that I took while talking with an opposition organizer yeseterday (not direct quotes):

Dara’a- the siege in Dara’a is being escalated. Roughly 300 more troops, including tanks and armed personnel carriers, moved from Damascus on Saturday. A mosque that was a symbol of the resistance was taken afterextensive shelling.

Dair Alzour- security forces started to showed signs of besieging the city. Water and power is starting to be cut, and communication is getting hard.

Latakia- it may seem quite here, but that is probably because communication network is weaker. The city has essentially turned into a military zone, and has been divided into about the three “cantons.” There is a bit of a standoff going between the army and the opposition.

Original post: SYRIA UPDATE: YASER TABBARA, CITY-BY-CITY UPDATE

Worldview: Violence in Syria intensifies

2011-04-26T22:27:00.000-05:00

by Worldview Apr. 26, 2011

Listen to this Story

Yaser Tabbara is a Chicago lawyer who writes the blog Damascene Thoughts. He joins us to discuss the escalating violence in Syria.

Original post: Violence in Syria intensifies

Yaser Tabbara on Chicago Public Radio Discussing Sectarianism and Latest Developments in Syria

2011-04-26T16:00:00.004-05:00

The Syrian government has intensified its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations. Today, witnesses in the city of Dara'a say they’ve heard gunfire. Human rights activists estimate that up to 25 people were killed in Dara’a on Monday after a military attack on protesters.

Yaser Tabbara is a Chicago lawyer who writes the blog Damascene Thoughts. He joins us to discuss the escalating violence in Syria.

>> Listen to the program here

Syrian Chicagoans Protesting for Syria - Saturday 4/23/11

2011-04-23T16:27:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Tribune Covers Syrian-American Protest

2011-04-23T15:11:00.004-05:00

With each news update, the dramatic series of events in the Middle East fueled a demonstration in downtown Chicago today that attracted about 300 demonstrators, many of them cheering on what they see as a democratic revolution sweeping across the Arab world.

First came the news that government soldiers in Syrian security forces had killed 11 more people Saturday after firing their weapons into crowds of mourners who were attending the funerals of the more than 100 protesters killed the day before.

Waving signs in Grant Park, the Chicago protesters began chanting “Bashar the butcher,” in protest of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s reaction to the bloody uprising that began there last month.

“That people are in a funeral, and their own government shoots them –- (this regime) has no respect for anything, they have no morals to stop them,” said Abdul Akhras, 64, of Burr Ridge, who moved from Syria in the 1980s and is now among the nearly 4,000 Syrians currently in Illinois.

“I’m really afraid that they’re going to crush everybody, no matter what the cost,” Akhras said. “If they have to kill a million people, they will kill a million people if that’s what it takes to stay in power.”

As the peaceful crowd’s energy increased, also voicing frustration at the violence against rebels in Libya, word filtered through that Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of Yemen, agreed to step down Saturday in response to ongoing protests in that country.

That triggered cries of joy that echoed through the park as curious passersby looked on.

Yaser Tabbara, a Syrian-American human rights lawyer, called on Syrians in the United States to join what he described as a “neo-pan Arabism” spreading across the world in the wake of the Middle East uprisings that include the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Egypt and Tunisia.

“One of the most amazing things about the pro-democracy movement that’s swept the Arab world entirely is that it has been non-ideological, non-Islamist, leaderless,” Tabbara said. “People are springing to action just in reaction to what’s happening in that part of the world. Enough is enough and the time is up for these decades-old fossilized dictators.”

Many in the crowd remained optimistic that new leadership and democracy would prevail in the region, despite the news that killings in Syria continued Saturday.

“These (dictators) try to be very brutal, and later on people will really wake up. It’s a natural cycle, no question. Otherwise there would be no justice,” said Abdul Tabara, 72, a Syrian living in Chicago. “We have these examples now –- Tunisia, Egypt –- so why not us?”

mecraig@tribune.com

Source: Chicago Tribune

Protest in Chicago to support Syria, and Libya April 23, 2011

2011-04-23T09:13:00.002-05:00

Original post: Protest in Chicago to support Syria, and Libya April 23, 2011

Tabbara in Al Jazeera: Syria: Dissolving illusions of reform

2011-04-22T00:20:00.009-05:00

As sporadic protests were sparked in the city of Daraa in Syria last month, many experts and commentators in the region were quick to dismiss a Syrian uprising. After all, Syria's young "reformer" president, Bashar Al-Assad, enjoyed a healthy measure of popularity and an even healthier measure of control.

Yet events on the ground have proven the contrary. In the city of Homs, a reported ten-thousand protesters (some say more) took to the streets and occupied Clock-Tower Square in the centre of town. Reminiscent of the images from Cairo's Tahrir Square, Syrian protesters pitched tents and declared their intention to stay and demonstrate, with some chanting, "a sit in, a sit-in, until the government falls!"

The unparallelled events that took place in Homs in the past few days have demonstrated the serious threat to the Assad regime. More importantly, the large numbers of Syrians who came out to demonstrate in the country's third-largest city have broken a threshold that many doubted could ever be amassed in Syria.

Today, Syrians from Damascus to Aleppo have seen evidence that the demonstrations have indeed reached a critical mass. Tens, if not hundreds, of YouTube videos confirm the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of the protesters in Homs. They also document the terrible moment when the regime's forces opened live fire on defenceless protesters.

Assad's infamous March 30 speech - or speech No. 1, as sarcastically dubbed by activists on Twitter - tested the loyalty of free-thinking Syrians to Assad.

Many who believed that the young president might in fact turn out to be a potential reformer, watched flabbergasted as the president warned the nation that anyone on the streets expressing any kind of dissent - albeit peaceful and moderate - is a traitor, a foreign agent or an Islamist with a puritan agenda to destroy Syria.

With this speech, Bashar metaphorically shot himself in the foot, and consequently lost much of his base. More demonstrators took to the streets in defiance.

Speech No. 2, more unrest

Assad then gives speech No. 2 a few days ago. In a subtle attempt to emphasise his supposed position of power, and his self-perceived popularity, he avoids addressing the Syrian people directly and instead lectures his newly appointed cabinet on national TV.

He ironically directs the cabinet to be more responsive to the demands of Syrian citizens, and asks the cabinet to set a concrete time line for ending 50-year-old emergency laws in the country. Once again, missing the mark by about two weeks, Assad attempts to make "concessions," that are too little too late. This speech, once again, fails to placate the quickly escalating demands of the rapidly maturing revolution.

On Tuesday, the government announced that the emergency law in the country was finally revoked. With the same breath, the interior minister threatened that though the emergency law - which had previously outlawed demonstrations - was no longer in effect, demonstrators who still insisted on protesting would be severely punished.

In a demonstration of the brutality of the regime, just hours before the emergency law was lifted, the peaceful sit-in of thousands of protesters in Homs was violently crushed, with at least two demonstrators killed by security forces.

The regime's insidious mix of carrot-and-stick tactics with violent repression methods has made it resoundingly clear that the regime has little faith in the intelligence and self-determination of the Syrian people.

The government seems to think that hollow concessions, followed by violent threats, will either serve to convince the people of Syria that the regime is in fact reasonable and has its interest at heart, while simultaneously scaring off more determined Syrians with the threat of violent reprisals.

Needless to say, the Syrian people have seen through this schizophrenic modus operandi of the regime, and have come to the conclusion that the notion of real reform being enacted by a government that has shot down - in cold blood - peaceful citizens of the state, is now impossible. The popular credibility which 'Bashar the reformer' once amassed, is quickly dissolving.

The pro-democracy movement is snowballing in numbers and in demands. What was inconceivable a mere month ago is now looking inevitable: Syrians are starting to fathom the possibility of an alternative to Bashar and his regime. The now famous slogan, "the people demand the downfall of the regime," which has been chanted in Homs, will now undoubtedly be echoed across the country.

The people of Syria are coming to the harsh realisation that reform cannot be handed down from an authoritarian regime. That change can only come if the people demand it, by taking to the streets in the spirit of the Tunisians and Egyptians that came before them.

M. Yaser Tabbara is a Syrian American civil rights lawyer and activist. He is currently the president of Project Mobilize, a Chicago based political action organisation.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera

Bashar's Missed Opportunity

2011-04-01T03:05:00.001-05:00

The eyes of the entire world were on Assad to see him learn from the teachable mistakes of those who fell before him and wisely opt to safeguard his power - not by defiance and brutality - but by putting his nation on the track of freedom and modernity while preserving its principled stances on foreign policy in the region.

He did the opposite.

Bashar's much anticipated speech followed two simple themes: First, any dissent is a criminal form of conspiring against his person, Syria and the "resistance." Consequently, anyone who expresses any disagreement is an agent of the West and the American-Israeli imperialist project in the Middle East.

In Syria, the pervasive culture of resistance has coopeted any discourse on the revolution. It has made simple, non-ideological demands for the rights of the Syrian people to be free mutually exclusive with taking a stand against imperialism.

Bashar's second theme was stoking the fear of sectarianism, effectively saying that if I'm not in brutal control civil war will ensue.

Much like the neo-conservative agenda of rallying Americans to justify the Iraq war, Bashar appealed to the fear of instability and the threat of conspiracy against Syria.

The reaction by his pseudo-parliament reinforced his very delusion, or perhaps cynicism. After all, he himself has revealed repeatedly to western media how little faith he has in his own people and their ability and "readiness" for democracy. How can they when he has made sure to reinforce a culture of fear and gullibility in his people? Fear of the unknown, of state security, of potential sectarianism, of instability, of fear itself. Or embarrassing gullibility that has constructed a personality-cult country that worships the oppressor.

Instead, Bashar should have appealed to the sense of hope and unity of Syria. The hope in a generation that can make out of Syria a power to be reckoned with, through political reforms that enforce civil society and true development. To end a personality cult and start reforming the culture in the direction of institutions and civil society. He should have appealed to the sense of unity in Syrians which predated him and his father and was the reason for a successful revolution against the French in the forties when all Syrian factions fought shoulder to shoulder to liberate Syria. He should have affirmed that principled resistance and freedom for Syrians can and should co-exist simultaneously.

Assad missed a golden opportunity to save what's left of his credibility with free thinking Syrians. He in effect expanded the opposition populist base and made it more mainstream by alienating those without an agenda. He polarized and divided Syrians more than ever before.

What started on March 15th had lit a spark of a revolution in Syria that is much bigger than what took place since. It's a revolution of the oppressed against fear and gullibility. It's a revolution of the state of mind of many Syrians.

WBEZ - Reflections on Developments in Syria: Yaser Tabbara on Chicago Public Radio

2011-03-29T00:23:00.011-05:00

Anti-government protesters continue to demonstrate across Syria today. So far at least 61 people have been killed. Yaser Tabbara, a Syrian-American lawyer and activist joins us to discuss the ongoing violence there. Also, we'll spend the week taking a look at how the Japanese nuclear crisis may or may not affect the nuclear energy industry in both developed and developing countries. We kick off the series with a look at global trends. Allison Macfarlane, chair of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, tells us which countries are busy building new nuclear power plants and which ones are moving to shut them down.

>> Listen to the program here

Syria's Revolution has Arrived - March 25

2011-03-26T01:41:00.010-05:00

March 25th will be a date to remember in the history of Syria. Tomorrow morning Syrians will wake up knowing that they have yet taken another step towards the impossible.

Thousands in Marjeh, Downtown Damascus:

Sit-in at Douma - Damascus:

Daraa: Statue of Hafiz Al-Assad Destroyed

Bashar’s Poster in Daraa gets torn as protesters shout Freedom Freedom

Hafiz Al-Assad’s Poster in Homs gets torn

Douma – Damascus:

Deir Ezzor: small protest in support of Daraa. “No more Fear”

Dariyyah: protest in support of Daraa. “Syrian People Will Not Be Humiliated.”

Idlib: Small but vociferous and straightforward. “Arabs and Kurds United Against The President Of The Country.”

Zabadani: “Syrian People Will Not Be Humiliated”

Zabadani: “We’re Coming Daraa”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAyLUZ4ol6Q

Mazzeh – Damascus: “They Took Everything And Left Us Nothing.”

Mouaddamiyyah – Damascus: “Where Are You Syrians,” “We Sacrifice Our Soul and Blood For You, Daraa” and “Silmiyyeh, Silmiyyeh, Peacefully, Peacefully, We Want Freedom.” One protester explains to crowd: “this means we don’t have weapons.” Three were shot dead later by security.

Marjeh - Downtown Damascus:

Project M featured in CNN: For Muslim politicians, running for office is the American way

2011-03-24T15:09:00.004-05:00

By Assia Boundaoui, Special to CNN

March 24, 2011

Chicago (CNN) -- Rola Othman sits at her dining room table littered with papers, poring over school board minutes.

She's anxiously preparing to speak at the Reavis High School District 220 board meeting in Chicago's southwest suburbs, where 11 teachers are about to be laid off.

And she has had enough.

Othman, a mother of two, is pursuing a doctorate in education. She says that when her son's school cut Advanced Placement classes and slashed the budget for academic programming, it was time to act.

"I see my kid's school going in the opposite direction, it's kind of scary. You can only make calls for so long," she said. "You need to effect change by being in the place to make decisions."

For Othman, that means running for the school board in her hometown of Burbank, Illinois. If elected, she would become the only Muslim American school board member in Illinois.

Stepping up for elective office

Othman is one of seven Muslim Americans running in Chicago-area municipal elections April 5. Five of the seven candidates are women, and all are the first Muslims to run for a seat in their respective races.

Across the country, dozens of Muslims have actively engaged in the American political process, running for -- and winning -- elected offices. From a mayor in New Jersey; to state representatives in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa, Maryland and Missouri; to congressmen in Minnesota and Indiana, American politicians from the Muslim faith are increasingly in political positions.

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, was elected in 2006 and is one of two Muslim Americans in Congress. (The other is Indiana's Andre Carson, a Democrat elected in 2008.) Ellison broke down in tears this month during hearings investigating the possible radicalization of Muslims in America, sponsored by Republican Rep. Peter King of New York.

"We've seen the consequences of anti-Muslim hate," Ellison explained as he wept at the hearings. "The best defense against extreme ideologies is social inclusion and civic engagement."

...

Link to full article here

Massacre in Daraa

2011-03-24T00:20:00.009-05:00

The following videos were taken earlier today. They expose the massacre of defenseless civilians in the city of Daraa, Syria, by the security forces (Warning, very graphic). The footage is of helpless men trying to dodge bullets while attempting to attend to the scattered bodies of their brethren who have been just shot and are still bleeding. Thus far, the estimates are 60-150 civilians killed in the city over the past 48 hours.

This video is of plain-clothed security elements apprehending people randomly off the street. These images are the manifest terror that Syrians have been subjected to for decades.

Personal Reflections:

These images are shockingly unfamiliar to my generation of Syrians, as we were too young to remember the Hama massacre. Yet, these images hit home in ways that moved me to the core. This real footage of a war-like situation that was soundtrack-ed by Syrian accented cries of fear and helplessness invoked a terrifying familiarity. I could not help but imagine my family and those that I grew up with being subjected to such horror.

This cannot stand.

This will not stand.

Silent Syrians, what will it take to move you to speak up?

Yaser Tabbara on Chicago Public Radio Discussing the Protests in Syria

2011-03-22T18:30:00.006-05:00

From Worldview's webpage:

When small protests began in Damascus, Syria in February, many observers believed Syria was unlikely to see the kind of revolutions that Egypt or Tunisia experienced. But now the movement appears to have picked up steam. Demonstrators demand greater freedom, an end to corruption, free elections and the repeal of emergency law, in place since 1963. Last week, security forces opened fire on a peaceful rally in the city of Deraa. At least five were killed. That spurred further protests in the region. We’ll get an update from Yaser Tabarra, a Syrian American lawyer and activist. Yaser had a recent opinion piece published on the Al Jazeera English website

>> Listen to the program here

Yaser Tabbara in Aljazeera: Syria's coming revolution?

2011-03-22T09:39:00.007-05:00

The revolution that was sparked in Tunisia has given birth to a new pan Arab-movement, a "neo-Arabism", which privileges freedom and democratic participation of the people over ideology, sectarianism and the interest of dictators.

As we witness a rebirth of a revolutionary neo-Arabism that has infected millions from Morocco to Bahrain, we cannot ignore the birth-place of the original pan Arab movement of the past century – Syria.

Much has been written about Syria and why it cannot be next in line of the modern day Grand Arab Revolution. Very few have asked the question: "Why not?"

On March 15, the Syrian Day of Rage, as its Facebook group put it, hundreds were reported to have taken to the streets of Damascus, the capital.

On March 17th, "The Friday of Dignity", the momentum picked up. Hundreds of Syrians protested in Homs, Aleppo, Dara'a and the coastal city of Banias. In Dara'a, a southwestern city on the Jordanian border, protests have turned deadly and the regime has sealed off the city in a hurried attempt to quell the spreading unrest.

Challenging the regime

Compared to footage of thousands, and sometimes millions, of protesters on the streets of Tunis, Cairo, Manama, Sana'a and Tripoli, the numbers in Syria might seem low. It should be noted, however, that what has taken place in Syria over the past few days is simply unprecedented. The only mass public expressions that Damascus has seen in the past few decades have been demonstrations co-opted by pro-regime supporters.

For anyone, let alone thousands of Syrians to call out in the open for freedom and dignity is simply unheard of: It is understood by every Syrian to mean a challenge to a once set-in-stone status quo.

A forty year old red line has been crossed and there is no turning back.

Some have made the argument that Syria is immune to unrest because the country has a popular president, who is generally considered to be in-tune with the sentiments of the Arab street on foreign policy and who is a young idealist that has introduced a "reform" agenda. Some others claim that Syria will side-step revolution because the social and economic conditions in the country are more tolerable than those of Tunisia or Egypt.

While these explanations may have some merit, they assume a false frame. Tunisians, Egyptians, and now Libyans, have demonstrated to the Arab world, and Syrians in particular, that people cannot be placated with hand-me-downs per the discretion, or the timeline, of the regime. It is about proactively taking what is rightfully theirs – from holding their government accountable to having a real choice in who governs them in the first place.

Freedom, dignity and democracy cannot be trickled down from dictators, they are the inheritance of the people.

Culture of dissent

The revolutionary rumbles that can be heard in Syria today, indicate that revolution is not only possible, but is inevitable because Syrians have learned from neighboring uprisings that freedom is attained through exercising one's inalienable human right to self-determination and self-dignity.

Like their Arab counterparts, Syrian youth have similar grievances: unemployment, lack of government accountability and rampant corruption that forecast a bleak future. Like other Arab revolutionaries, they are neither dominated by an Islamist ideology nor a foreign agenda. They are Syrians who comprise the rich diversity of Syria – whether Christian or Muslim, Druz or Alawi, Kurd or Assyrian. The recent protests in the country have shown that these young protesters are united in purpose, and peaceful in their means.

Syrians have embarked on an irreversible path of collective political self-awareness. The slogans of March 15th, "God, Freedom and Syria, period!" cannot be unuttered. They have challenged a culture of complacency, fear and silence.

No one will be able to tell with any degree of certainty what will happen in the next few days or weeks in Syria. Will the momentum continue to snowball and bring more Syrians to the streets? Will the regime make an example of Dara'a and show the populace the price one pays for dissent? Or will a critical mass of Syrians decide the time is now for Syria to join its free brethren in Egypt, and Tunisia?

One thing, however, is for certain: If Syria does not see a full-blown uprising soon, a culture of dissent has nonetheless commenced. The fear barrier has been broken irreversibly.

People are finally realising that they are entitled to what is fundamentally theirs, and like their Tunisian and Egyptian sisters and brothers, they will know what do with it. They will organise and come together and they will learn to build a revolution and a more prosperous Syria.

M. Yaser Tabbara is a Syrian American civil rights lawyer and activist. He is currently the president of Project Mobilize, a Chicago based political action organisation.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Original AlJazeera link: Syria's coming revolution?

MindfulofDreams.com: Yaser Tabbara Eviscerates Rep Peter King’s Star Witness, Zuhdi Jasser

2011-03-21T23:22:00.003-05:00

Chicago attorney Yaser Tabbara who sits on the board of CAIR-Chicago debates AIFD chairman Zuhdi Jasser who was the star witness for Representative Peter King's hearings on Muslim radicalization. In a one-one-one with Zuhdi on the Roy Green show on Chorus radio, Yaser debunks the myths set up by Peter King and Zuhdi Jasser that the American Muslim community is itself radicalized or partial to radicalization, and sets clear the reality of the American Muslim community which has gone "above and beyond" in standing up against radicalization and expressing its latent Americanness.

>> Listen to the debate here <<

Original Link at Ahmed Rehab's Blog

Debate on Syria Misses the Larger Picture

2011-03-21T13:37:00.010-05:00

Ever since the March 15 demonstrations erupted in several cities in Syria there has been a number of allegations questioning the the merits of these protests with a particular focus on speculating over who is behind them. To dwell on such allegations is to miss the point and beg for context.

Since January, the Arab World has been swept by a pro democracy movement that is hard to miss. Starting with Tunisia, followed by Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya. Less significant numbers turned out in Morocco, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine. Obviously, each one of these countries has its unique set of geo-political and demographic facts and circumstances but all of their populations share a common theme. They are Arabs who are demanding change in one form or another. Syria is no exception.

Despite their seemingly unique reality, Syrians are not immune to this wave of massive, popular discontent. In Syria today, corruption and nepotism are the standard rather than the exception, and political freedoms are non-existent. As such, the idea of Syrians demanding their rights out in the open should not be considered antagonistic by any stretch, no matter which Syrian is calling for it.

Those who propagate the equation of protesters to traitors are doing the future of Syria a disservice because dissent is needed and healthy and cultivates democracy, transparency and government accountability. In fact, this sort of disingenuous rhetoric, which attacks anyone who expresses discontent with their government as either a non-patriotic foreign agent or an agenda-driven Islamist, was invoked by Bin Ali, Mubarak, Qaddafi and Saleh but quickly debunked by the reality of the revolution.

The question of who and what was behind the initial spark of protests in Syria is now moot. Syrians will ride the wave of the democracy movement and a few thousand here and there will snow-ball into millions if grievances are not seriously and immediately addressed.

Re-launching Damascene Thoughts

2011-03-20T20:37:00.004-05:00

Friends, in the wake of the historic events in the Middle East and developments here in the US, I am re-launching my blog Damascene Thoughts where I intend to share my thoughts, musings and analyses on the current events.

In particular I will be focusing on the revolutions in the Arab World as they have been a great source of my inspiration. I am interested in exploring not just the unfolding events, but the larger context in which they are played out, as well as their global ramifications.

Any feedback on the new design is greatly appreciated.

Yaser Tabbara joins Chicago Muslims in Responding to King Hearing

2011-03-20T17:47:00.004-05:00

CHICAGO, New York - Congressman Peter King says he doesn't want to "demonize anyone" when the House Homeland Security Committee looks into the radicalization of American Muslims.

The Republican says Thursday's hearing is meant to look at how American Muslims are being convinced by extremists to turn against the United States.

Critics of King say he's lumping all Muslims together with terrorists.

"Everyone is telling me to go ahead with it," King said. "My district, I think, it is a good barometer. Nobody in my district didn't know somebody who was killed on September 11. It is still very personal."

Muslim Americans in Chicago call Thursday's hearings embarrassing; Embarrassing to Muslims and Embarrassing to Americans as a whole.

Members of CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, say the Muslim community has been unfairly targeted and efforts to root out radicalism in America have failed.

The result is America is no better off today than it was yesterday when it comes to representing the intentions and the population of the Muslim people in the United States.

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, the first Muslim-American in Congress, testified today and said the hearings could backfire.

"Ascribing evil acts of a few individuals to an entire community is wrong. Its is ineffective and it risks making our country less safe." said Ellison.

Word of the hearings led to pro and against rallies in New York.

Some Muslim-Americans and civil rights groups call the hearings a witch hunt against Islam.

"The proposed hearing virtually casts doubt on an entire community by virtue of its faith," said Naeem Baig, from Islamic Circle of North America.

"Representative King's two allegations that American-Muslims do not cooperate with law enforcement and that 80-85 percent or their leadership are extremists are demonstratively false," said Nihad Awad, from the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Despite the protests, King said the controversial hearings must and will go forward.

"To back down would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the main responsibility of this committee-- to protect America from a terrorist attack." said King.

Copyright © 2011, WGN-TV, Chicago

American Muslim Movements: The Civil Rights Model

2010-05-07T09:06:00.003-05:00

by Worldview May. 07, 2010

Liste

sten to this Story

n to this Story

Yaser Tabbara and Ahmed Rehab are co-founders of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

CAIR says its mission is to “enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.”

We'll find out what Islamic Reform means to Yaser and Ahmed, and how CAIR draws on lessons learned from the Civil Rights Movement.

Original post: American Muslim Movements: The Civil Rights Model

damascus from far, far away

2007-01-01T17:18:00.000-06:00

I have been in Syria for over three months now. Damascus is where I’m originally from and where I live at the moment. Though I was born in Chicago, my family decided to relocate to Damascus when I was only two.. I grew up here until I was almost 18. I then left Damascus in September 1993.

I don't come here regularly anymore. Last time I was here was over three years ago. That was when I went crazy, quit my Chicago job, and back-packed for six months. Then, I decided to resettle in Damascus but I couldn't.. I don't think I was ready for Damascus.. I suspect she was for me.

Three years later a lot of the circumstances that brought me back here at the time did so again. I am seeking refuge in the lap of a place I'm deeply intimate with.

This place, I care so much for. I care for it like my family.. house.. life. Its backward aspects bother me yet don’t shame me. The system here, or lack there of, decrepit roads, crazy drivers .. provincial-esque infrastructure really are a source of great deal of charm and nostalgia.. frustrating at times but when I stop and think of an alternative more "developed" Damascus I cannot help but reject this generic image in my head. That of a "globalized" Damascus with American fast-food chains, Shell gas station signs on every other corner and lots of corporate soulless buildings. Now before I'm hastily accused of naivety and judged a silly romantic I say that it is this aspect of "development" that I reject and not one that will save the inhabitants of my city from unemployment, poor housing and unacceptable living conditions. All I want is for Damascus to keep its character. Something, I'm afraid, it will loose faster than my lifetime.

The character of Damascus is woven through thousands of years of civilization. It shines through the goodness of its people.. their dignity and generosity.. through the genuine smile of a hopeful Damascene in spite of a cynical looking future.. through the innocence and compassion that still intensely describes people here. It shines through the tastiest food my pallets have experienced.. through the overwhelming scent of Jasmine engulfing streets on summer nights.

You will understand when you get here.

a midwestern levant

Just like being of Damascus and Chicago I am the product of two starkly different families. My Father's very large family (seven sisters and six brothers) that places on the lower end of the Damascene socioeconomic scale stands at a stark contrast with my mother's rather small and more privileged family. My paternal grandfather was an imam of a small mosque and a botanist by profession, and my grandmother (one of four wives) was illiterate. On my mother's side, my grandfather was a well-known physician and an officer in the Syrian Army - my grandmother was a school headmistress at a time when few women received any education at all. What harmonizes this seeming contradiction, I truly believe, is a value that is deeply rooted in both my parents: empathy.

Damascus, Chicago.. Chicago, Damascus.. Two extremely different places.. One is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world - the other is one of the world's newest and most advanced. (Insert corny irony about how both cities were built by one humanity sharing an abundance of common values).. Two extremely different places that define me.

But you see, I'm not a Damascene who adopted Chicago as his second home; nor am I a Chicagoan who, through a spiritual journey, decided to get in touch with his Damascene roots. I am of both cities. I have different relationships with either of them, but I am of them both. I am as familiar with Jame'e al-Afeef (my grandfather's mosque) as I am with Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge (the one on 21st and Indiana) - as I experienced spirituality in both places.. as familiar with the majestic Chicago skyline as I am with a miniature Damascus from the top of Qassioun.. as intimate with the warm muffled silence of an “historic” Lincoln Park street after a fresh December snow as I am with the call of the mouazin at maghrib at my childhood mosque.. as familiar with the wrestling scents of spices, dust and layers of years at al-Bzoureah spice market as I am with a crisp fall breeze in a Logan Square October morning.. I feel as depressed driving through a Chicago south-west neighborhood off of Ashland or Marquette as I do driving through al-Hajar al-Aswad in Damascus.. I have the same intense sense of pride showing off State Street's unique character or Oak Park's Frank Lloyd Wright architecture as I do walking someone through the narrow streets of Old Damascus with homes and structures as old as the oldest continuous civilization on earth.. I walk, with the same satisfaction, out of "Toast" hipster brunch in Wicker Park as I do out of "Bouz al-Jiddi" (Damascene breakfast) in Souq al-Jumaa bazaar.

I am of both places.