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Olde Tyme Religion

Bending For Islam

2013-08-20

[IsraelTimes] To a Mohammedan like myself, Islam has passed me by the day a Mutawya'ah (Saudi inquisitors religious police) caned me for refusal to pray in the Grand Mosque of Riyadh, but it has become a target of my criticism just last week when the Islamists in Zanzibar doused two innocent British girls with acid. The straw of that incident broke my back. My criticism of my religion is long overdue. Out of respect for my family, peers and friends, I delayed the inevitable because of my overflowing optimism. I cannot and will not glue this broken glass. If we Mohammedans do not speak about our own ills, who will? Consider for a moment any of the five possible reasons why the Zanzibar Islamists viciously attacked Katie Gee and Kirstie Trup, both 18-years old. According to The Daily Beast, which dispatched Margot Kiser to investigate the matter, the attack could have been motivated by a Mohammedan woman who slapped one of the girls, two days earlier, for singing Western songs. It is possible she would have instigated men in her family to carry out the attack. Alternatively, the attack could have been motivated by local boys whose advances Katie and Kirstie spurned. Or, it could have been motivated when the girls reported missing funds at the Catholic School where they worked. Or, it could have been motivated by the fact they were not appropriately dressed in accordance with local customs Or, the girls were singled out because they were Jewish. Good grief, where do I start? For singing or playing your music, we will mutilate you. For not satisfying our sexual urges due to our own religious repression, we will mutilate you if you do not submit to our hormonal rage. For stealing from your employer, we will mutilate you if you report it; meanwhile, if you steal from us, we will cut your limbs one by one. For not wearing the Hijab, we will mutilate you; meanwhile, Western societies permit Mohammedan women the freedom to select between customs. For just being Jews, we will mutilate you. You are guilty even when innocent. Is Islamism sick or what? Do you find the silence by our Mohammedan leaders as intolerable as I do? If you do, please voice your concerns. The first step to fixing our ills is for the world to stop treating us like royalties by bending before us or bending its rules to please us. The West must hold those responsible, directly and indirectly, accountable. It is not just about the two Islamists who attacked Katie and Kirstie, it is, also, about the deafening silence of those Arab and Mohammedan leaders the West mistakenly holds in high regard. Enough is enough. Farid Ghadry is the co-founder and President of the Reform Party of Syria. He manages THE PAXGAMES, a celebration of worldwide peace to be hosted in Italy in 2014.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Assad revokes citizenship of politician who visited Knesset

2007-09-16

Syrian President Basher Assad revoked the citizenship of exiled Syrian opposition member Farid Ghadry of the Syrian Reform Party, the government-affiliated Syria News Website reported Saturday. The official reason for the revocation of Ghadry's citizenship is his appearance before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in June. Ghadry visited at the invitation of committee chairman MK Tzachi Hanegbi. "This demonstrates how Syrians striving for true peace with Israel are persecuted for their beliefs by a regime that claims it wants peace, but supports terror," Ghadry told Haaretz. Ghadry left Syria with his family at the age of 10. He founded the Syrian Reform Party in the U.S. in the wake of the September 11 attacks. His opponents claim the he does not represent anyone, and that he is a "pretend" exiled Syrian leader. No similar move was taken by Syria against Syrian-American businessman Ibrahim Suleiman, who also appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, despite reports that the Syrian government had warned him the he would be punished.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Speculation Rages About Iran's Plans for August 22

2006-08-21

(CNSNews.com) - August 22 could usher in an apocalyptic period in the Middle East thanks to some belligerent action on the part of the Iranian regime. Or maybe not. As Tuesday approaches, the Internet is running hot with speculation about what Tuesday may bring, ranging from a new refusal by Iran to shut down its controversial uranium-enrichment activities to an attack -- even a nuclear attack -- against Israel. The frenzy was prompted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement, more than a month ago, that his government would deliver its response on August 22 to an international carrot-and-stick proposal aimed at defusing the standoff over its nuclear activities. The date was chosen by Tehran and had no obvious relevance in international diplomacy. The only formal deadline the international community is currently awaiting with regard to Iran is August 31 -- the date set by the U.N. Security Council for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment or face the possibility of sanctions. Some commentators have downplayed the importance of August 22, arguing that the decision was simply one of convenience, akin to saying "we'll respond by the end of the month." August 22 marks the end of the Persian solar month of Mordad. But others are less sanguine, noting that the date is significant in Islam, for several reasons. It coincides with the Islamic calendar date Rajab 28, the day Jerusalem fell to the Islamic warrior Saladin, in October 1187. Many Muslims regard Saladin's victory as a high point in Islamic history, and just weeks ago, Syrian fans of Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah were likening him to the 12th century Kurdish hero. On the night of August 21-22, Muslims believe Mohammed underwent his "night journey," a trip on a magical steed from Mecca via the "farthest mosque" -- later said to be al-Aqsa in Jerusalem -- and on to heaven and back. The two-stage journey is known in Islam as the "isla and miraj," and tradition holds that a divine white light appeared over Jerusalem at the time. "The night of August 21 is a very, very important night in Shi'a Islam," according to Farid Ghadry, a Sunni Muslim and president of the exiled Reform Party of Syria, based in the U.S. Ghadry claimed that Ahmadinejad would deliver his answer to the international community in the form of a "light in the sky" over the al-Aqsa mosque on the night of Aug. 21-22. He urged the world to take the date seriously, adding that "nothing happens without a reason in Iran." Commenting on Ghadry's interpretation, Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch argued that an Iranian attack on Israel, conventional or nuclear, would "be consistent with Ahmadinejad's oft-repeated denials of Israel's right to exist and recent predictions that its demise was at hand." "Will he attempt to make good on these threats this year on the anniversary of the miraj, illuminating the night sky over Jerusalem?" Spencer wrote in Front Page magazine. "Will Western powers heed Farid Ghadry's words and move to stop Iran before it is too late?" An article published by the pan-Arabic media organization al-Bawaba noted Ahmadinejad's adherence to the Shi'ite belief in the 12th imam - also known as the "hidden" imam, Mahdi, who disappeared more than a thousand years ago but has been miraculously kept alive, pending his emergence at a time of global chaos and war. "Some believe that Imam Mahdi will be returning some time this August, also the time some military experts predict that Iran will be ready to construct its first nuclear weapon," it said. "Apparently, Ahmadinejad sees himself as an instrument to pave the way for the arrival of Imam Mahdi as well as an important successor to Saladin in terms of the liberation of Jerusalem." Circulating widely online are the thoughts of the veteran Islamic scholar Prof. Bernard Lewis, who also refers to the belief in the return of the hidden imam. "Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced," he said in an article originally published Aug. 8 in the Wall Street Journal. Pointing to the date of Mohammed's journey, Lewis wrote: "This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world." "It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22," he said. "But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind." "In the world of radical Islam past events add weight to any contemporary attack," political commentator Micah Halpern wrote in the Israel Insider magazine. "Attacks are programmed to resonate with history and reverberate with meaning beyond the present. Attacks are a tool used to remind the collective Muslim community to recall an historical episode." Halpern argued that the Iranian president chose Aug. 22 because of its significance in Islamic history. "Ahmadinejad is invoking eschatology, the end of days and the time of 'the great light in the sky' as Muslims call it. Ahmadinejad is informing the Muslim world that, this year also, an event of significance will happen on that date. Ahmadinejad proclaims that the event will change their destiny." The Israel intelligence website Debkafile reports that there is much speculation about what Iran may be planning for Tuesday. "Tehran may announce success in producing enriched uranium of a higher grade, meaning it is no more than six months away from a weapons-grade capability. While providing justification for U.N. Security Council sanctions, Tehran prefers to believe that this announcement will be its passport for admission to the world's nuclear club and its attendant privileges, including the right to enrich uranium independently." Counterterrorism consultant Daveed Gartenstein-Ross mulled the possibility that Iran's Aug. 22 date may be linked in some way to recent unconfirmed reports suggesting that North Korea may be preparing for an underground nuclear weapons test. Writing at the Counterterrorism blog, he noted that the two rogue states have cooperated in the past in the nuclear field. In an article on the question of the Aug. 22 date, investment analyst Larry Edelson said conditions looked ripe for a wider war in the Middle East. The Arab world was convinced Israel had come out of its month-long conflict with Hizballah in Lebanon having "effectively lost its first war," he said on the Money and Markets website. "Hizballah is essentially an extension of Iran, supplied and financed by the country's Revolutionary Guard. End result: Iran is more emboldened than ever." Edelson predicted an increase in volatility and financial risk by the end of August.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Hundreds of Iranian Troops Fighting in Lebanon

2006-07-19

Hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel are on the ground in Lebanon fighting Israel, security sources say. "I have no doubt whatsoever that they are there and operating some of the equipment," an Arab diplomatic source told The New York Sun yesterday. Another foreign source, based in Washington, said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps contingent in Lebanon is based in Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley. He said the troops usually number a few dozen, but that the size of the force increased in connection with the hostilities that have broken out between Israel and Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, over the past week. The sources said the Iranians had directly operated a radar-guided C–802 missile that Iran acquired from Communist China and that hit an Israeli navy missile boat off the coast of Lebanon on Friday, killing four Israeli seamen. "This was a direct message to the Israelis that we are fighting the Iranians here," the Arab diplomatic source said. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard's mission in Lebanon includes keeping custody of Zalzal missiles and drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles. A report by an Israel-based research group, the Intelligence & Terrorism Information Center, identifies the units of Iran's Revolutionary Guard "deployed and active in Lebanon" as the "Al-Quds Force." The Lebanon-based Iranian force "provides military guidance and support for terrorist attacks against Israel," the report says. They'd be the one's handling the advanced hardware, leaving the simple stuff to Hizballah President Bush has openly blamed Iran, along with Syria, for sponsoring Hezbollah, but he has stopped short of identifying the presence of Iranian troops in Lebanon. Tomorrow, a senior National Security aide to Mr. Bush, Elliott Abrams, and the undersecretary of state, Nicholas Burns, will chair a meeting at the White House for at least 10 Iranian opposition organizations. The White House has hinted to those invited that President Bush may stop by. The Iranian government has cheered Hezbollah's actions while at the same time publicly denying the presence of Revolutionary Guards in Iran. Clearing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard from Lebanon has emerged as an unstated, but significant, Israeli war aim. Israelis also are hoping for tougher American and international sanctions on Iran and Syria as punishment for the Iranian and Syrian roles in Hezbollah's kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and raining of missiles on Israeli cities. The Arab diplomatic source described the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, as "totally subservient" to Iran. "How more forceful can I put it?" he said. In New York on Monday, Senator McCain, a Republican of Arizona who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said the Iranians had supplied Hezbollah with arms, equipment, training, and 10,000 rockets. He said he did not see how Hezbollah would have captured Israeli soldiers without "the tacit agreement and maybe support of the Iranians." And Mr. McCain said Iranians have "very heavily penetrated" southern Iraq, "including sending in terrorists" and equipment for the bombs known as improvised explosive devices. The Hezbollah offensive against Israel followed a summit in Damascus. Reports vary on whether the meeting was attended by Sheik Nasrallah himself or by one of his top political aides, Sheik Hussein Khalil. Others said to be present include the head of Syrian military intelligence, Assef Shawkat, and the Iranian national security adviser, Ali Larijani, who is one of the many high-ranking Iranian officials who have been shuttling between Damascus and Tehran. The president of the Reform Party of Syria, Farid Ghadry, who opposes the regime in Damascus, said there are indications that Hezbollah and the Iranians and Syrians recently attacked a Lebanese army base, signaling they are expanding their campaign beyond Israeli targets.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

An Exiled Assad Plans a Return to Syria

2005-09-29

WASHINGTON - Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of Syria's current leader, is putting himself forward as a possible successor to his nephew, prevailing upon friends in Saudi Arabia and Iraq's transitional assembly to press his case to a wary Washington. Earlier this month, Rifaat, who is the exiled brother of Syria's former strongman, Hafez al-Assad, told some Lebanese papers that he was planning on making a triumphant return to Syria. His brother kicked him out of the country shortly after letting him return to Damascus for his mother's funeral in 1992. In August and September, Rifaat met with members of the political party of Iraqi politician Ayad Allawi in an effort to gain an audience with a high-ranking Bush administration official. Rifaat al-Assad is also said to have helped procure a witness, former intelligence officer Mohammed Saddiq, in the United Nations investigation into the murder of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Mr. Saddiq, who the Syrians claim is a fraud, fled to France earlier this year. Interesting. Cut the legs out from under his nephew, then ride in to take his place On Monday, the former director of the congressional task force on terrorism and unconventional warfare, Yossef Bodansky, virtually announced Rifaat's candidacy to head Syria. Sitting across from Rifaat at a Paris restaurant, Mr. Bodansky said on the John Batchelor program on ABC Radio that his dinner companion enjoyed support from America and Saudi Arabia as the heir apparent to the crumbling Baathist regime in Damascus. Yossef also wrote the report on the upcoming "Great Ramadan Offensive", for what it's worth. Yesterday two American officials denied these claims. "We have no interest in a dialogue with Rifaat al-Assad," one American official said. But nonetheless, the search for a replacement for Bashar al-Assad is clearly on the minds of top policymakers in Washington and Riyadh. Saudi diplomats have quietly already told their Gulf counterparts that they would support the conclusions of the United Nations report due next month, wherever it leads. This is code, one diplomatic source said, for supporting the policy of isolation that helped pressure Syrian troops to exit Lebanon earlier this year. Meanwhile, in Washington over the weekend Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick told an audience at an off-the-record retreat for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that America was indifferent to the fate of Syria's rulers. "The United States is interested in behavior change, but if regime change would occur, so be it," he said, according to three people in the room for his comment. Rifaat al-Assad has been angling for a way to take over Syria since 1983, when his brother first exiled him after he amassed a militia in the streets of Damascus with rumors circulating that the leader was deathly ill. Over the years, the Assad family's black sheep has had intermittent meetings with Western and Arab intelligence services and claimed, according to one former CIA official, that he could foment a military coup with his contacts in the military and security services in Syria. The deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Patrick Clawson, said yesterday, "Rifaat at various times in the last decade has tried to propose himself as a more reasonable alternative to other members of his family." Don't you just love Middle Eastern politics? It's so medieval One of Rifaat's possible selling points to the Americans is also one of his liabilities. In 1982, he led the military campaign that crushed the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, a massacre that claimed as many as 40,000 lives. In this respect, he can claim experience that will serve him in putting down the jihadist movement in Syria at war with Iraq's first representative government. Yet at the same time, because he is both an Assad and a Baathist with blood on his hands, support for him would severely undermine America's public case that it is supporting the transition to democracy in the Arab world. It would give him credibility for those in Syria who think Bashar al-Assad is a wimp and long for the good old days. One democratic opposition leader, Farid Ghadry, who has been quietly meeting with opposition groups in Europe for the past two months and has had some meetings with American policy-makers, says that he is wary of any efforts to supplant Bashar al-Assad with another dictator. "If Rifaat Assad wants to help Syria and wants to be part of a democratic process then let him say so," Mr. Ghadry, who is the leader of the Reform Party of Syria, said Tuesday. "The solution to all of our problems is democracy, not another dictator or someone to use violence to stop violence." Salameh Nematt, the Washington bureau chief for al-Hayat, an Arabic newspaper, said yesterday, "Americans and Saudi leaders want to see a smooth transition in Syria from those tainted with the murders in Lebanon to people who can look at a new page. Rifaat is universally seen as not acceptable for the job nor supported by the majority of the Syrian people, but he is clearly promoting himself to the Americans and Syria's neighbors." A political science professor at Florida Atlantic University and an expert on Syrian politics, Robert Rabil, said flatly, "Rifaat is not going to work in Syria." He said that Rifaat al-Assad has too many enemies in the country ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to loyalists to his brother. "He has a terrible past and is accused of corruption throughout Syria," he said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Policy on Syria moving towards regime change

2005-06-08

In the wake of Lebanon's first elections following Syrian withdrawal, American policy toward the world's remaining Ba'athist government is approaching support for regime change. President Bush's top foreign policy advisers met last week to discuss the government of Bashar al-Assad, mulling, according to two administration officials briefed later, a tougher policy that would allow American forces or encourage Iraqi soldiers to pursue terrorists that escape to Syria from Iraq for safe haven. At the State Department, the Bureau of Near East Affairs and the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor have asked Congress for explicit legal authority to fund liberal opposition parties inside Syria through regional initiatives that have hitherto focused on reforming American allies such as Jordan and Egypt, two administration officials told The New York Sun. The White House is also pressing to expand the U.N. inquiry into the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, to include a probe of the June 2 murder of the anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir in Lebanon. Later this month, the White House is expected to apply tougher sanctions to Syria, possibly freezing bank accounts of the regime's top leaders, in accordance with the 2003 Syria Accountability Act. The new approach is also palpable in routine diplomatic matters. Last Friday, when envoys from the Arab League arrived for a State Department briefing on Mr. Bush's meetings with the Palestinian Arab leader, Mahmoud Abbas, Syria's representative was turned away from Foggy Bottom and told his government was not invited, according to one diplomatic source who requested anonymity. The latest developments in Washington suggest a more concerted effort by the Bush administration to foment the collapse of the regime, according to America's ambassador in Damascus between 2001 and 2003, Theodore Kattouf. "My sense is that this administration is willing to roll the dice and take a chance on a post-Bashar al-Assad leadership if he is not willing to drastically change Syria's internal and foreign policies," Mr. Kattouf said in an interview yesterday. "However, Bashar is not the regime, and his fall would not necessarily lead to the result this administration would welcome." America's message to the Arab world has been stern regarding Syria. A front-page story ran yesterday in the influential, Saudi-owned Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, which quoted anonymous Bush administration sources as saying that their "advice to Mr. Assad is to retire." Arab journalists here on Monday were briefed by Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs David Welch. The story yesterday prompted an exiled opposition group, the Reform Party of Syria, to send out an e-mail proclaiming that the State Department for the first time had endorsed "regime change" for Syria. "These are the pre-steps to the final countdown of the Assad regime. America is already preparing for the alternative, which is democracy," the president of the Reform Party of Syria, Farid Ghadry, said yesterday. The Washington bureau chief for al-Hayat, Salameh Nematt, told the Sun yesterday, however, that the Asharq al-Awsat story will be read by the Syrians as a message from the Saudis. The paper is published by Prince Faisal bin Salman, the son of the deputy prime minister and head of the air force. "The Syrians are going to read this story as a message from the Saudis, whom the Syrians fear might get excited about a prospect of a regime change that will bring the Sunni Muslims, who are the majority, to power in Syria," Mr. Nematt said. Damascus has taken steps to meet, on the surface at least, the demands of the international community to end its occupation of Lebanon. Not only have the Syrians withdrawn troops, but yesterday at a Ba'ath party conference, the Syrian vice president who exercised so much influence over Lebanon, Abdul-Halim Khaddam, announced his resignation. The message to Syria is being carried by some of the president's domestic opponents. On Monday, after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Annan regarding the inquiry into Hariri's death, Senator Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont and harsh critic of the president's foreign policy, said he believed Syria was squarely behind the slaying of the former prime minister. "There is no question, no question in mind from all I've seen, they were behind the assassination, and I think that the only good thing could be said from that assassination is that they so overstepped, maybe it was the arrogance of power, so overstepped their position, Syria did, that we've all seen the public reaction against it," Mr. Leahy said. An administration official familiar with the U.N. report also said that it shows very clearly that Syria was behind the murder of Hariri. "Could we prove this in a criminal court? Not beyond a reasonable doubt. But there is no other plausible explanation. There were movements of individuals before the assassination who would have been known by Syrian intelligence, the preparations for the attack could not have escaped Syrian intelligence," the official said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syrian and Saudi Pro Democracy Reformers meet Sharansky

2005-05-22

This is a Rantburg Exclusive since I was a witness. There is a fellow in my synagogue who is a big linguist and pro democracy (and pro Bush) fan and he has a lot of friends in the mid east. He was sponsoring a light meal Saturday pm (Seudah Shalishit) in memory of the anniversary of the death of his mother (yarzeit) and invited some his friends. Natan Sharansky came (and sat near me for the morning (Shaharit) service. In the afternoon (we eat a light meal after the afternoon prayer- Mincha, and before the evening prayer - Maariv), Sharansky and members (including Farid Ghadry) of the reform party of Syria (see: http://reformsyria.org/) and members of a reform party of Saudi Arabia (they call themselves Arabians not Saudis because they detest the ruling tribe) had something of a love in. They finished each others sentences - they spoke English sometimes and Arabic at other times.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Middle East Reformers meet In Rockville, Maryland

2005-05-22

This won't be in the news but I was an eye witness. A number of middle east reformers were invited guests of a member of a Rockville, Maryland synagogue today. Among them was Natan Sharansky (former prisoner of the Soviet Union) and Farid Ghadry (head of the Syrian Reform Party) and some other Syrian reformers. Also several Saudi Arabians (they call themselves Arabians because they hate the Saudi family). They spoke in English together and actually finished each other's sentences.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syrian Baathist regime could fall

2005-03-02

March 02, 2005, 7:54 a.m. (from nro site) A Loosening Grip Protests in Lebanon give hope to two nations. Born in Syria, Farid Ghadry, is president of the Reform Party of Syria, "a US-based opposition party" of pro-democracy Syrians. In the wake of Lebanon's government stepping down, NRO Editor Kathryn Lopez caught up with Ghadry to get his quick read on the state of play in both Lebanon and Syria. National Review Online: How big of a deal is the government resignation in Lebanon? Were you surprised by it? Farid Ghadry: It is a huge deal because not only did it show that the peaceful will of the people can prevail in curbing despotism, but it also showed how weak Syrian Baathists are. And that is very important. The Syrians and Lebanese have lived the last 44 and 29 years respectively under fear from a powerful police state that is accountable to no one. The Lebanese experience with the killing of Hariri has demolished the concept that Syrian Baathista are all-powerful and they are accountable to no one. The Lebanese people are emboldened by the support of the international community and members of parliament like Ahmad Moufatfat and Walid Ido have warned high Syrian intelligence officers that they seek to bring them to justice if implicated in the killing of Hariri....Ghadry: We believe that first and foremost, the United States need to understand that most Syrians are peaceful people. The majority are Sufi Muslims that want to live in peace and do not share the vision of other extreme Sunni Muslims in introducing [Islamic law] as the staple of a new Syrian government. There are those of us who have lived in the U.S. and feel that the interests of both countries are parallel — delivering at the same time a peaceful nation and a nation that wants to bring economic prosperity through a culturally sensitive capitalist society. The United States must leave the Syrians a chance to show that we are worthy of building a better nation. What we want is help to overthrow the regime, Yay. A prominent person sort of supports my theory of a reform military govt for Syria.

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Europe

French suppressing Syrian disident?

2004-03-05

From Front Page .... In 1978, as protests against Shah Phalavi swept across Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was living in a cozy house in the Parisian suburb of Neauphle-le-Chateau, engineering an Islamic revolution that would soon shake the world. Under the watchful eye of the French government, Khomeini met regularly with journalists and actively campaigned for the Shah’s overthrow. In fact, when Pahlavi finally fled Iran in 1979, Khomeini was provided with a chartered Air France flight to Tehran, where he presided over one of the world’s most repressive regimes until his death in 1989. France’s generous hospitality toward Khomeini is interesting to note in light of the plight of Nizar Nayouf, a dissident Syrian journalist and human rights activist currently living, like Khomeini once did, as a political refugee in the suburbs of Paris. In 1991, Nayouf became editor-in-chief of Sawt al-Democratiyya (Voice of Democracy), a newspaper critical of Syria’s Ba’athist regime, and also co-founded the Committee for the Defense of Democratic Freedoms and Human Rights in Syria (CDF). These ventures earned Nayouf a nine-year stay in a Syrian prison, which he barely survived. But in 2001, thanks to urging from former French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, Nayouf was released and permitted to travel to France, where he received desperately needed medical attention. Following his recovery, Nayouf -- who was granted political asylum in France in 2002 -- resumed his pro-democracy activism with renewed vigor. Recently, he revealed three potentially explosive documents that he says connect Syria, France and Iraq to episodes involving hidden Iraqi WMDs and election bribery. The documents, which Nayouf acquired from sources in the Middle East, have captured the attention of media outlets in the U.S. and abroad. They have also drawn the ire of the DST (French Federal Intelligence Agency), which has attempted to silence Nayouf by using tactics reminiscent of those employed by his former Syrian captors. According to Nayouf, on January 30, he was brought in for questioning by DST officials, who interviewed him for several hours before releasing him. At the end of the interview, a French officer identified to Nayouf only as “Colonel Heprarb” informed him that he was to refrain from making any further public announcements surrounding the deposed Iraqi regime’s relations with Syria and Lebanon. Nayouf was also told that his public declarations have caused diplomatic embarrassment to the French government, not only in its relations with Syria but also with other countries that Heprarb refused to mention. While Nayouf was left shaken by this experience, his dealings with the DST would soon take an even more troubling turn. Nayouf contends that following the interview with the DST he returned home to the Parisian suburb of Malakhof only to find that his apartment had been broken into and three CD-ROMs containing sensitive documents had been stolen. A map showing possible locations of Iraqi WMDs in Syria was purportedly among the documents taken, as well as information regarding two billion dollars that had been deposited by Saddam Hussein into a number of Syrian and Lebanese banks prior to the fall of his regime. The CDs also allegedly contained information describing the establishment of a fund for the reelection of Jacques Chirac by the deposed Iraqi regime via the office of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri, not to mention a list of dissidents and political organizations in Syria that received funds from the intelligence apparatus stationed in the Iraqi Embassy in Paris. Colonel Heprarb, for his part, has categorically denied any DST involvement in the burglary. But clearly, as stated by Julien Dumond in Leparisian on February 5, the “burglary” seemed suspiciously like an intelligence-gathering mission. Reached by phone to comment on the DST’s conduct regarding Nayouf, Heprarb quickly became agitated: “This affair is finished
because this is a very difficult issue to answer about
if you will call again I will never answer
I ask that you must not call here another time.” At that point, Heprarb ended the conversation. Apparently, however, the matter was not finished. On February 3, the DST invited Nayouf to its offices for four more hours of questioning. Incredibly, Nayouf says that during this session DST officials asked for the password to his personal computer so that they could access his files directly (one wonders if Heprarb will deny DST involvement on that count as well). Nayouf maintains he did not provide the password. Nayouf’s recent troubles with the DST coincide with the French government’s repeated refusal to provide him with the political refugee passport he was legally granted in 2002 (and is due to him by French law). This action has prevented Nayouf from traveling abroad and continuing his work with the Syrian Democratic Coalition, a fledgling pro-democracy group led by the Syrian-born Farid Ghadry. On February 5, French Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous stated that, “no measures have been made” by the French government to limit Nayouf’s movements. Ladsous also claimed that Nayouf’s refusal to surrender his Syrian passport (a passport that, ironically, has not been in Nayouf’s possession for over a year) has caused the bureaucratic delay in issuing his travel documents. However, according to French law, a refugee does not need such a passport to begin with; therefore, no legal basis exists for denying Nayouf valid travel documentation. So Nayouf remains under gag order in Paris, unsure if, or when, he will be extradited to Syria, where opponents of the Ba’ath Party invariably turn up dead or in prison. “Nayouf represents the conscience of every Syrian who has suffered under the Ba’athist rule,” says Ghadry. “I believe he deserves the protection of the U.S. and the dignity accorded to people who have fought for human rights all their lives.” For now, Nayouf can only wish for the same treatment the French government so graciously extended to Ayatollah Khomeini years ago

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Syria-Lebanon

Exile alliance to push reform - by getting themselves jailed and beaten.

2004-01-20

EFL An international alliance of Syrian exile groups, buoyed by events in Iraq, announced yesterday that it plans to confront Syria’s authoritarian regime by chartering a plane to fly dissidents to Damascus later this year. The recently formed Syrian Democratic Coalition also criticized the European Union for its ties with Syria. The coalition advised France and Germany, in particular, not to buck a trend away from authoritarianism toward democracy in the Middle East. "Remember: We're democrats, but we're still Arabs! Don't even be makin' us seethe!" After a three-day meeting in Brussels, the coalition of 19 associations and parties declared that it would hold a congress in the Syrian capital and that its members were willing to face jail — or worse — for their defiance. "We expect the worst," said coalition President Farid N. Ghadry, a naturalized American citizen, whose Reform Party of Syria is based in Potomac, Md. I’m sure your expectations will be met. "But we are determined to go back. We cannot liberate our country without being foolhardy and wasting our lives when Assad is already on the run taking risks." Some were skeptical that Syria would allow a planeload of dissidents to enter its airspace, let alone hold a conference. Mr. Ghadry has totally misunderstood the dissident job description. Dissident are supposed to flee out of brutal despotic regimes. Maybe Mr. Ghadry will leave a diary. I have always wondered about the mentality of a bug that flies into the zapper.

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