About Us

IMRA
IMRA
IMRA

 

Subscribe

Search


...................................................................................................................................................


Sunday, May 13, 2012
Syrian opposition: Thousands of political detainees held in military centers

Syrian opposition: Thousands of political detainees held in military centers
13/05/2012 By Paula Astatih
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=29612

Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat- According to opposition forces, the Syrian regime,
after signing its agreement with UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, has
transferred most of its political detainees from prisons to military
centers, which the international observers currently deployed in the country
are not permitted to visit, within the framework of what the regime claims
to be respect for Syrian sovereignty and national security.

In this regard, forces in the Syrian opposition are organizing media
campaigns to pressure and urge the UN observers to enquire about the fate of
these detainees, who are now classified as “forcibly disappeared persons”
because their families and relatives know nothing of their whereabouts or
whether they are dead or alive.

Radwan Ziadeh, a spokesman for the Syrian National Council (SNC) and
executive director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies,
has taken up this cause. His brother, Yasin Ziadeh, was arrested on the 30th
August 2011 by Syrian Air Force intelligence personnel and was detained in
the air force intelligence center at the Mazzah Airfield for nearly three
months.

Based on the experience of his brother, Radwan Ziadeh asserts: "Thousands of
political detainees are currently being held in this and other centers that
belong to the 4th Division, which is led by Maher al-Assad, brother of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in order to prevent international
observers from inspecting their situation."

Ziadeh told Asharq Al-Awsat: "As soon as we lose trace of detainees and
their families are unable to contact them to learn if they are alive or have
been killed, they are considered forcibly disappeared persons. On this
basis, we believe that the regime is currently practicing the crime of
forced disappearances and we believe that the number of disappeared people
has exceeded 30,000."

Ziadeh recalled that the Syrian regime carried out forced disappearance
crimes in the 1980s, and noted that now it is doing so on a larger scale.

He said: "The regime forces youths to join the military service and then
places them in volatile hotspots where they are prevented from communicating
with their families, who no longer know whether their children are alive or
not. This practice also falls under the category of forced disappearance."

Commenting on the role that the opposition, particularly the SNC, plays in
efforts to discover what has happened to these detainees, Ziadeh spoke of
its "critical media role, and coordination with international organizations
and observers."

He added: "Furthermore, human rights organizations work to document cases of
forced disappearance in order to present their files to international
tribunals or the International Criminal Court at a later date, or even to a
future transitional government in Syria."

Yasin Ziadeh was arrested on the 30th August 2011 and released in November
the same year. After his arrest, his family told Amnesty International that
he did not take part in the current pro-reform protests. It is believed that
he was arrested for his family ties with his exiled brother, Radwan, who
resides in the United States and who is a spokesman for the SNC and head of
the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies.

Yasin Ziadeh was released without further charge. The reasons for his arrest
and release continue to be unclear to his family. The Syrian Interior
Ministry issued a statement on the 5th November last year in which it
announced the release of 553 detainees, who had “participated in the events
but whose hands were not stained with blood." It is believed that Yasin
Ziadeh was among them.

A few days ago, the SNC called on the UN Security Council to pass a binding
resolution forcing the Syrian regime to stop "escalating its policy of the
arrest, killing and systematic torture of detainees."

The SNC also called on international observers to "frequently pay
unannounced visits to prisons and detention centers."

The SNC’s statement said: "According to the most reliable and conservative
statistics, there are more than 20,000 detainees and missing people,
including hundreds of women and children."

1) A number of websites have been set up. The official site appears in
English, Arabic, French, German and Spanish, and calls for people to join
the campaign.

2) A number of designated Facebook pages have been opened. They call for
various propaganda activities, such as waving Palestinian flags in streets
around the globe on September 28, holding demonstrations in front of Israeli
embassies in Egypt and Jordan, and in front of Palestinian delegations.

Events Planned in Judea and Samaria

18. Campaign events include:

1) Distributing flysheets and other propaganda material about the campaign
throughout Judea and Samaria to encourage the public to participate in
activities. Distributing the material is supposed to be the responsibility
of the governors of the various Palestinian Authority districts.

2) Teaching the significance of the process to school children as part of
the curriculum.

3) Using the media to display videos, panel discussions and programs about
the issue.

4) Demonstrations and marches with the theme of "Palestine, State Number
194th." The marches will be held at various locations, including at foreign
delegations and in large cities, and will culminate in so-called "the
million-man march" planned for September 21, the day of the UN General
Assembly's opening session. Demonstrations against the security fence will
continue at the traditional friction points: Bila'in, Nili'in and Qalandia.

5) Giant screens will be set up in city squares to broadcast Mahmoud Abbas'
speech on September 23.

6) The "flying chair" campaign: A chair upholstered in UN blue was
constructed to symbolize the chair of "Palestine" in the UN. It is being
transferred from place to place in the Palestinian Authority and is supposed
to eventually reach New York.

7) Various events sponsored by the Catholic Church, among them a peace
festival and candlelight procession in front of the Church of the Nativity
in Bethlehem.

The Gaza Strip

19. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri declared that the Hamas movement, both
inside the Gaza Strip and abroad, was not party to the campaign activities
because there was no national consensus about the move, and that was because
it would not benefit the Palestinian people (Qudsnet website, September 5,
2011). The campaign coordinator for the Gaza Strip, Muhammad al-Zaq, said
that Hamas had forbidden all public action for the campaign in the Gaza
Strip in general and Gaza City in particular (Voice of Palestine Radio,
September 7, 2011). Nevertheless, in our assessment Hamas will not
completely prevent events from being held in the Gaza Strip, but they can be
expected to keep a low profile.10

20. Rogue organizations and operatives can be found in the Gaza Strip,
including those affiliated with the global jihad, with reservations about
the move in the UN and unfettered by the considerations constraining Hamas.
In our assessment they are liable to make an attempt to accompany the events
in the UN with terrorist attacks to attract attention away from them.

The Propaganda Campaign Abroad

Initial Overview

21. Yasser Abd Rabbo, who heads the campaign, stressed the importance of
waging it in the international arena. At the August 3, 2011 Executive
Committee meeting where the decision was made to conduct the campaign, he
said that the campaign demanded global activity which would include all the
Palestinian communities around the world.

22. A designated website for the campaign was set up in five languages to
enlist support groups and it sent out a call for the citizens of the world
to join. A site called Palestine194.org was set up in Britain which also
issued a call to activists and organizations, trade unions and universities
around the globe to join the "Palestine 194" campaign. According to the
website, there will be a series of activities which will climax on September
21. The organizers intend to turn the date into an international activity
day for the sake of the Palestinians. There were similar calls on other
websites.

23. According to our information about the organizations and networks abroad
participating in the campaign, especially in the United States, in some
cases they have been set up ad hoc in view of the Palestinian move in the
UN, and in others they are pro-Palestinian organizations of long standing.
In our assessment the organizations participating in the campaign to
delegitimize Israel, striving to destroy it and rejecting the two-state
solution have not yet engaged in intensive activity regarding the appeal to
the UN. However, in some cases their activists joined networks striving to
promote the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside
Israel.11

Europe

24. On September 15 the Freedom for Palestine Campaign announced the date of
the end of the campaign to get one million signatures in support of the
declaration of Palestine as an independent state with the June 4, 1967
borders and Jerusalem as its capital. The signatures will be presented to
the European Parliament on September 21, and preparations are being made in
Brussels to transmit them. The leader of the campaign said that people were
asked to sign through political parties, social organizations and solidarity
with Palestine committees (Bana.ir website, August 18, 2011).

Britain

25. A London campaign called September 15 is organizing a demonstration
whose date is not yet known. The UN has declared September 15 as
international democracy day.

The United States

26. The September 15 campaign issued a call for activity on September 15 and
the two days following.12 Demonstrations are being organized throughout the
United States, the most important of which will be held in New York. Other
cities will include Omaha, organized by Katie Huerter from a network called
Nebraskans for Peace; Pittsburg, where the protest will be organized by
Students for Justice in Palestine; San Francisco, organized by Code Pink and
the Palestinian Solidarity Movement; and Washington, DC, where a
demonstration is planned near the State Department building, and from there
the demonstrators will march to the White House (Facebook). The
demonstrations will call on the United States not to support Israel. A
network called Stop US Aid to Israel will participate in the demonstration.

27. The website of Adalah-NY (The New York Campaign for the Boycott of
Israel) has information about a march which will held on September 15 in
Times Square and from there move eastward to the UN building. It will be
sponsored by a large number of organizations operating under an umbrella
organization called the Palestine UN Solidarity Coalition. It is apparently
an ad hoc group organized for the needs of the Palestinian appeal to the UN.

28. Among the organizations participating in the New York march are the
following:

1) The WESPAC Foundation: According to their website, they "provide outreach
and community to individuals, groups and leaders in civic and religious
organizations...who find themselves without a voice or support system for
their progressive positions."13 It is located in Westchester, New York, and
has a committee dealing with the Middle East, primarily the Palestinian
issue, including the so-called "right of return."

2) The US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN): A network of Palestinians
in the United States which originated from the Palestinian Popular
Conference held in Chicago in August 2008. It works for self-determination
and equality for the Palestinians, as well as for the so-called "right of
return" and the end of the "colonization" of Palestine.

3) American Muslims for Palestine: An organization whose objective is to
"educate" the public about the Palestinian right to self determination.

4) The United National Antiwar Coalition: A group which opposes the United
States policies in the war on terrorism.

5) The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network: An international network
of Jews who oppose the existence of the State of Israel and work to promote
Palestinian rights, including the "right of return." The network is also
active in the campaign to boycott Israel (BDS).

6) The International Socialist Organization: An organization with branches
throughout the United States. Its objectives are justice and liberation in
the present for the sake of a socialist society in the future.

29. A network called The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation also
conducts activities and includes organizations working to change American
policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. In August 2011 it sent a letter
to the American State Department signed by 125 groups including 30 national
organizations and a petition signed by more than 25,000 people calling on
President Obama not to use the American veto in the United Nations on the
Palestinian issue. Between September 16 and 19 (on the eve of the opening
session of the General Assembly) the network will hold its tenth annual
convention in Washington, DC, with the participation of Omar Barghouti (an
activist from Ramallah who heads the international BDS campaign).

Israel

30. The September 15 network is organizing activities in front of the
American Embassy in Tel Aviv.
------------------------------------------------

1 Appeals appeared on Facebook for demonstrations in front of the Israeli
embassy in Amman.

2 Mahmoud Abbas stated the security theme, as well as others directed at
Israeli public opinion, at a meeting with 20 Israeli cultural figures
accompanied by journalists in the Muqata'a in Ramallah (Haaretz, September
6, 2011, Avi Issacharoff reporting from Ramallah: "Abbas: As long as I am in
office the security coordination will be preserved."). Israeli Arabs, on the
other hand, received a different message, far more blatant. Yasser Abd
Rabbo, head of the Palestinian campaign, referred to meetings between
Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Barak, describing the Israeli defense minister as
"the biggest liar in Israel" and a "political crook" (Kul al-Arab, Nazareth
news site, September 7, 2011).

3 For further information about Hamas' fears, see the August 4, 2011
bulletin "Senior Hamas figures reiterate extremist positions, reject the
Palestinian Authority's proposed September UN move and emphasize the
ideological and strategic differences between Hamas and the PA" at
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/ipc_e215.pdf.

4 Alawda-mag.com

5 For example, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO's Executive Committee said
that "membership in the UN will not cancel the rights of the refugees, but
on the contrary – it will confirm them" (Al-Hayat, September 2, 2011). Dr.
Zakaria Ala'a, also a member of the PLO's Executive Committee and chairman
of the refugee department, said in a press release that the "right of
return" would not be harmed by the appeal to the UN because it was anchored
in UN Resolutions 181 and 194 (palpress.co.uk website).

6 The number, 194, of the Palestinian state in the UN, coincidentally refers
to the same number as UN Resolution 194 from 1948, which according to the
Palestinians gives the Palestinian refugees the "right" to "return" to the
territory of the State of Israel. The Israeli legal position is that the
Palestinian interpretation of Resolution 194 is incorrect and cannot be used
as a foundation for the claim of the "right of return."

7 On September 7 the official Palestinian Authority paper Al-Hayat
Al-Jadeeda published the results of a survey held by the well-established
Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO, headed by Nabil al-Kukali). The
survey examined the position of the public regarding the appeal to the UN.
One of the questions related to methods for popular protest. Of the
respondents, 25.9% were in favor of large nonviolent demonstrations
including the takeover of roadblocks and blocking the roads to the Israeli
army and the settlers. Another 15.2% were in favor of armed action against
the IDF and the settlers. A majority of 53.4% were in favor of a return to
the negotiating table with the Israeli government.

8 The exposure of Hamas military-terrorist cells in Judea and Samaria in
recent months is an indication of the possibility that the terrorist
organizations, especially Hamas, may try to disrupt the events in September.
The various cells which were exposed were kept in readiness for military
action directed from external headquarters. One of the cells, based in
Hebron, was planning to carry out a suicide bombing attack on August 21 in
the Pisgat Zeev neighborhood in Jerusalem (Shabak.gov.il website). Terrorist
attacks, whether carried out in Judea and Samaria or elsewhere (the Gaza
Strip, the Israeli-Egyptian border) could draw attention away from the
September move and harm the message the Palestinian Authority wants to send
about nonviolent protest.

9 The Internet has been a popular tool for social protest in the Arab world
and pro-Palestinian propaganda events held this past year (the flotilla, the
"fly-in," Nakba Day and Naksa Day)

10 It can be assumed that Fatah and Palestinian Authority supporters in the
Gaza Strip will succeed in carrying out some sort of activity. For example,
Ma'an News Agency reported that a group of children in the Gaza Strip waving
Palestinian flags was brought from the southern Gaza Strip to the Erez
crossing in the north (Ma'an News Agency, September 5, 2011).

11 Such ad hoc joint ventures among the organizations accepting the two
state solution and those delegitimizing Israel and seeking to destroy it
were common in the past.

12 According to the Mondoweiss blog, it is a network established by a
journalist named Mya Guarnieri, who is located in Tel Aviv.

13 http://wespac.org/index.php/about-us/52-mission

Search For An Article

....................................................................................................

Contact Us

POB 982 Kfar Sava
Tel 972-9-7604719
Fax 972-3-7255730
email:imra@netvision.net.il IMRA is now also on Twitter
http://twitter.com/IMRA_UPDATES

image004.jpg (8687 bytes)