Syria should back away from its violent crackdown on protesters and enter talks with the opponents, Iran’s leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a live interview taken in early September in Teheran with Radiotelevisao Portuguesa. “There should be talks” between the Syrian government and its opponents, he added, stressing the importance of dialogue in the matter.

“A military solution is never the right solution”, the Iranian leader said, according to the Portuguese translation of his comments. “We believe that freedom and justice and respect for others are the rights of all nations. All governments have to recognize these rights,” he said. “Problems have to be dealt with through dialogue.”

Ahmadinejad’s comments come after similar comments made by Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who said one month earlier that the Syrian president should answer the legitimate demands of his people. However, Salehi also cautioned that a “power vacuum” in Syria could have “unprecedented repercussions” for the entire region.

“Other countries in the region can help the Syrian government and people to talk to each other with a view to resolving their differences and introducing the reforms that are needed,” Ahmadinejad said. Iran, Damascus chief ally, has blamed nations such as the United States and Israel for instigating long-term protests in Syria, while U. S. and other nations have accused Iran of helping Assad crush the uprisings afflicting the country.

“Other countries have no right to interfere in…domestic discussions,” Ahmadinejad concluded, citing NATO’s controversial intervention in Libya in early 2011 as an example of misguided actions. The ongoing Syrian conflict started in January 2011 with a series of protests that escalated to a violent uprising by the end of March.

The demands of the protesters include for President Bashar al-Assad to step down, for a pluriparty system which would allow other political systems besides the ruling Baath Party, equal rights for Syria’s religious and ethnic groups, as well as broad political freedom, such as freedom of speech, press and assembly.

As protests intensified, the Syrian government used tanks and snipers to force civilians off streets. So far, more than 3,000 protesters have been killed and many more injured, tortured or detained. Since the beginning of the conflict, the Syrian government has made several concessions, but protesters are not satisfied and demand for more meaningful reforms.

Crackdowns on protesters intensified as time went by, causing international reactions. European Union, Arab League, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and many Western governments expressed their disapproval of the Syrian government’s response to the protests.

Many condemned the violence which has not stopped since the beginning of the uprising while showing support for the protesters’ right to freedom of speech.
Paul McKinnon / Shutterstock.com

The article Syria: International Community Urge Talks with Protesters appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

People of the Arab world have started to envisage a society that is not designed to suppress the voice of the people.

The importance of democracy has really dawned on the people of Syria, which shows that they have picked up something which already set ablaze many Arab states this year. The wave of disturbances between state and citizens that rocketed in Tunisia and Egypt arrived in Syria, leading to the death of hundreds of people.

This crisis at the outset is much deeper in meaning. It represents how the state has ignored the will of its citizens and deceived its people under President Bashar-Al Assad, who inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorships from his father Hafez-Al-Assad.

Economic stagnation and ancient autocrats are just a few of the grievances that are responsible for the upheaval currently threatening to sweep away the ruling regime. Decades of repression and in some instances economic sluggishness has resulted in viole”nt disruption of political, social and economic life in the general Middle East.

What is needed is a series of political and economic reforms that would foster economic growth. Furthermore, it calls for recognition and granting of basic rights to people to protest and bring about change.

Political liberty in terms of rule of law, more education, a free press and liberation of women is required for every state to lead a peaceful life. Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate in economics on Economic development, said:

“Development has to more concerned with enhancing the lives we lead and freedoms we enjoy.”

People were shouting houriye, houriye (freedom, freedom), and it represents the fact that people realized that their political system is not really reflecting their views.

The relationship between the state and its people had been devastated. According to Economics, a newspaper, “the media which focused on the apparent aspect of the crises (filmed or to produce reports describing the events in the street) have not paid attention to socio-conomic, demographic or political aspects of Syrian society”.

The Syrian society disregarded the existence of more than one political party to oppose the Baath Party until recently. But recent violent protest clearly reveals frustration and state of unease for the people led under pressure to bring in new law that now permits the creation of new political parties along-side the ruling Baath Party.

The key demand of the protest is the liberation of the political system and freedom to form political parties that had been restrained by article 8 of the Syrian constitution so far.

Existence of single political party shows a political monopoly in the country, in economic theory birth or existence of monopoly is regretted or hindered by law similarly in politics it is protest for a change that eventually leads to more just society.

Now the attitude of the Syrian government has been softened since the cabinet approved the multi party bill. Other political party can now participate in elections. Normalcy and prosperity should not be unreachable in the future.

De Visu / Shutterstock.com

The article Syria – The Dawn of Democracy? appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.