Tag Archives: Bashar Assad

12May/08

Unsilenced Voices

The road to Damascus.
November 30, 2005.

By Nir Boms

With increasing international pressure over the U.N. investigation into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, Syria’s young president, Bashar al-Assad, has taken the identification of his country with the Assad name to new levels. In a recent speech he defiantly stated: “It will not be President Assad who will bow his head nor the head of his country. We only bow to God almighty.” As he desperately calls for an emergency meeting of the Arab league that might help alleviate the growing international pressures, Assad is trying to reassert control in a troubled country that now must handle parallel attacks from the United Nations, United States, and, increasingly, the Syrian opposition.

Continue reading

11May/08

Rumblings in Damascus

By Nir Boms and Erick Stakelbeck

For Bashar Assad, the diffusion of last weekend’s anti-government riots in northern Syria represented a dodged bullet, as his Ba’ath Party was ultimately able to maintain its tyrannical grip over the lives of 22 million Syrians. 

For Syria’s democratic reformers, however, the unrest may merely have signified the calm before the storm. 

As of Tuesday, armed police continued to stand guard on the streets of Qamoshli in northeastern Syria, where the atmosphere remained tense following the largest uprising against the Syrian Ba’ath Party in years. 

Continue reading

11May/08

On to Damascus

Feb. 14, 2004
On to Damascus
By NIR BOMS & ERICK STAKELBECK

Last month at the Free University of Brussels, just 200 meters from the Syrian Embassy, a group of Syrians gathered to discuss something that can only whispered about in their native land – freedom.

The scene was the second conference of the Syrian Democratic Coalition (SDC), a union of pro-democracy groups comprised of both resident Syrians and those living abroad. Under the auspices of the Belgian government representatives of 19 Syrian political parties, civil rights and student organizations gathered from January 17-19 to discuss replacing the world’s last remaining Ba’ath Party dictatorship with a secular democracy.

Continue reading

11May/08

Free Damascus

Nov. 27, 2003
Free Damascus
By NIR BOMS & ERICK STAKELBECK

‘The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country.” With this statement, made in his November 6 speech calling for the establishment of democracy in the Middle East, President George W. Bush galvanized an increasingly active contingent of democracy advocates.

Amongst them was the Reform Party of Syria (RPS), a fledgling US-based political movement comprised of resident Syrians and Syrians living abroad. RPS was formed shortly after 9/11 to express a voice that has been virtually nonexistent in Syria under 40 years of oppressive Ba’ath Party rule: a voice of freedom.

Continue reading