The big issues of the coming campaign are not in question. The economy, America’s growing debt, unemployment, and the role of entitlements (read: government) in Americans lives are crux of the 2012 battle for the White House. Highlighting the negative results in these areas is Mitt Romney, best hand for winning the election.

Nonetheless, foreign policy issues and threats are looming above America’s head in a big way, and will need to be addressed. The conventional wisdom is that Romney has little foreign policy and relations experience. President Obama’s own lack of experience in this area notwithstanding, his campaign zeroed in on this one reason that Romney is not the right man for job.

Governor and Romney advisor Tim Pawlenty addressed this viewpoint and other foreign policy concerns today in a symposium held by the Foreign Policy Initiative. Moderated by board member and Fox news analyst Bill Kristal, the event gave Pawlenty a forum to address how a Romney Presidency would look like in the area of foreign relations. The big take away from the event was Pawlenty’s view that Romney is on the right track.

“Romney has the right foundational and directional philosophy to make the correct decisions.” Pawlenty followed this up by reminding everyone in attendance that Reagan did not have extensive foreign policy experience. His worldview is what allowed him to be an effective foreign policy President.

Channeling Reagan is something that most, if not all, republicans attempt to do. It does not matter whether it is taxes, the economy, or dealing with America’s challenges abroad. Still, there is a large grain of truth to his statement. Governors of either party seldom have extensive foreign policy and relations experience. Their duties at times lightly touch the area, but their primary function is running their states. The lack of experience has to be made up with study and experienced, sound advisors.

Underlying it all, however, is the philosophy of the person in charge. The President can have a mindset like Carter or Winston Churchill. How he views Americas role and his mindset sets the agenda for who he has as advisers, what diplomacy targets he set, and what he will do and not do with America’s armed forces.

Pawlenty was critical of the philosophy President Obama has taken. “President Obama has decided to lead from behind. To have America take a less active role as leader in the world. That has not worked out well.” Examples given of this view were the “reset with Russia,” as the President calls it, and the missed opportunity in the Iranian uprising.

The financial challenges the country faces are grave, but the potential threats of Iran, Russia, and China are like a Damocles sword above the neck of Uncle Sam. Romney cannot afford to let the view of the President set America’s view of him in this area. The knowledge and philosophy that Pawlenty speaks of must be in full view to the American public. Foreign policy may not be issue one this election cycle, but it still cannot be allowed to be ignored.

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The Syrian Prime Minister, Riyad Hijab, has resigned and joined the revolutionary movement for “freedom and dignity.” Hijab thus became the first Prime Minister of the Assad Regime to give up his post. He is said to have escaped to Jordan together with his family on Monday, August 6. However, Jordanian National Television has denied the rumor that Hijab is temporarily taking refuge in the territory of the Arab kingdom. It is still unclear where the former PM and his family are hiding.

There is information that three other ministers followed him out of the country. According to international reports, the Finance Minister, Mohammad Jlailati, was among them but his escape was prevented and lead to his arrest. The Syrian State Television officially repudiated these disclosures. An interview with Mr. Jlailati, in which he refutes the rumor that he was taken into custody, was broadcasted.

The uprising in Syria started in March, 2011 and has until now claimed the life of thousands of people. Syrians fight for change. The civil war is directed against the al-Assad regime, which prevents the democratization of the republic. As part of the revival of Syria under the government of Bashar al-Assad, Riyad al-Hijab was appointed to the post of Prime Minister in June, 2012.

The events in Syria immediately found an international response. The desertion of Mr. Hijab is “just the latest indication that Assad has lost control of Syria,” declared Tommy Vietor, US National Security Council spokesman.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson of Mr. Hijab announced that the former Prime Minister will work to “rebuild a Syria of the future, and Syria without Bashar al-Assad.” In a written statement to the media, Mr. Hijab himself declared his “deflection from the killing and terrorist regime.”

“I am from today a soldier in this holy revolution,” he adds.

It was reported that Omar Ghalawanji will provisionally assume office as Prime Misnister of Syria.

In the meantime, the actions of the revolutionaries continue. The building of the Syrian State Television and Radio in Damascue was the target in a recent bombing. As a result, three people were seriously injured.

In an official statement, Iran, one of the al-Assad regime’s allies, declared that it will organize a meeting in which the conflict situation in Syria will be discussed. The main goal of the conference will be to find a lasting solution of the problem between the revolutionaries and the ruling circles.

“Our aim is to find ways out of the current crisis, to return stability and to calm that country,” said Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister.

It was announced that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Quarter will not participate in the meeting, because they are in opposition to the Syrian President.

“Saudi Arabia, Quatar and Turkey are responsible for the blood that is being spilled in Syria,” Mr. Abdollahian added. The fate of Syria remains unclear, although Middle East experts are convinced that the Assad regime is running into a serious crisis in its inner circles.

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The conflict in Syria rages on as the Battle of Aleppo enters its third week on August 2. Since March of 2011, when the first anti-government protests began in Syria, around 200,000 have been made refugees and around 20,000 people have been killed.

Aleppo, a commercial hub in Syria and the city with the largest population, is one of the most active combat locations in Syria. It is a key location since the winning of Aleppo for the rebels could mean the end of the Assad regime. BBC’s Jim Muir wrote, “The longer the situation remains unresolved, the stronger the rebels’ grip may become, as they pursue their goal of establishing a ‘liberated area’ in Aleppo and neighboring Idlib province to use as a springboard against the regime’s last stronghold, Damascus.”

Many rebels have taken hold of several districts within the city of Aleppo and Assad has sent tanks, helicopter gunships, and war planes to attack it.

On August 2 the rebel Tawheed Brigade left Tal Rifaat to give aid to the rebels in Aleppo. Also early in the morning of August 2 the rebels attacked Menagh army base with a stolen tank. Menagh is from where Assad has been launching several of his artillery and air strike attacks on Aleppo. The rebels pulled out after a short time with one rebel fighter claiming, “We hit the airport using a tank that we captured from the Assad army. We attacked the airport a few times but we have decided to retreat at this time.” However, several reports claim that the retreat may have been due to the war planes that attacked the rebels.

In Aleppo, rebels put a video online that showed them executing several prisoners; the act is being called a war crime by several organizations. The rebels also claim to have taken three police stations within the city in the last week. Also last month, Assad’s forces managed to drive most of the rebels out of Damascus and began to push an offensive on Aleppo.

Tensions between the two sides have also risen from the government activity in Damascus and the rebel activity in Aleppo. Assad, who has been in power since the death of his father in 2001, launched two attacks in Damascus on Thursday in which soldiers went door to door asking people to show their papers. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) claimed “the bodies of 43 people were recovered. Some of them had been summarily executed.”

In the last month Assad’s top four advisers, including his own brother-in-law, were killed in a bombing. Since then, Assad has been in hiding and has only issued pre-recorded statements.

On Wednesday, August 1 the mobile phone connections were cut for the city of Aleppo leading many to believe that the government would launch an attack. In fact, on Thursday the government forces attacked the Salaheddine district in Aleppo, although most were repelled by the rebels.

The problems worsen even further for the citizens of Aleppo since the city is beginning to run out of food. The World Food Program issued a statement claiming, “The humanitarian situation is deteriorating in Aleppo and food needs are growing rapidly.”

The world’s response

Many believe that outside governments should be helping the rebels although since Russia and China are in favor of keeping Assad in power, there has been little consensus. The Security Council has created three separate resolutions that have been vetoed by Russia and China as too extreme because it would cause a regime change led by an outside power, violating sovereignty.

The UN General Assembly will be voting on a resolution written by Saudi Arabia shortly that would support the Syrian rebels.

President Obama called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, July 30 to “coordinate efforts to accelerate a political transition in Syria.” Although Obama will not send direct military assistance, he does seem to want to support the rebels. The Treasury Department has recently decided that it will give a license to the Syrian Support Group that will aid the rebels financially.

Jordan, a bordering country to Syria, has been helping Syrian refugees enter their country. However, in recent days Syrian soldiers shot at Jordanian troops that were helping the refugees to cross the border.

On August 2, the UN-Arab League joint special peace envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, has announced that he will not renew his contract when it ends in August, effectively quitting his job. He claims that the Syrian people “desperately need action” but he believes that the UN Security Council is “finger pointing and name calling.”

Annan is the author of the six point peace plan that was introduced a few months ago. It called for an end to all military conflict, peaceful political negotiations, and more freedom of expression for the Syrian people. Unfortunately, neither the rebels nor the Syrian government upheld all sides of the plan and the situation quickly deteriorated.

Annan has blamed both sides in the Syrian conflict for the lack of peace but has also said that the problems were “compounded by the disunity of the international community.” He went on to state, “Syria can still be saved from the worst calamity – if the international community can show the courage and leadership necessary to compromise on their partial interests for the sake of the Syrian people – for the men, women, and children who have already suffered far too much.”

Currently it is unknown who will fill Annan’s position at the end of August, but most assuredly few are willing to take it.

Image Courtesy of   homeros / Shutterstock.com

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Two wars are being waged in Syria. There is the physical fighting going on between the rebels and government troops but there is also a media war going on in which the results of the physical battles are being hidden or changed to misrepresent facts. One young activist, Yahya Abdulrahman, a physics student at Aleppo University claimed, “The regime is fighting the people in two ways. One is with the army. The other is with the media. There are parts of the Free Syrian Army that are fighting the regime. But there are other parts fighting the regime’s hackers.””

Smart phones have been key in the Syrian uprising – just like in the Arab Spring revolutions – because, according to the Christian Science Monitor, it is a way for the people to undermine the state media (which is controlled by Assad) and get supporters within Syria and in the rest of the world. So far the Syrian government has banned access to YouTube and Facebook, but several of the youth have found ways around these government firewalls.

Having smart phones and access to computers and internet allow the rebels to communicate with friends and family as well as talk to soldiers who want to defect to the rebel army.

Many Syrian rebels have risked their lives while fighting the media war. According to the Guardian hundreds of video activists have joined the revolution through videography; most are male, young, and technologically capable individuals. Abdulrahman, one of these activists, admits that filming is just as dangerous as fighting with a gun: “If the army sees anyone with a camera they try and kill him first.”

However, the video aspect of the revolution is just as important as the actual physical fighting. Assad controls Syria’s television stations which claim that the Free Syrian Army (the rebels) is a group of “terrorists” and “al-Qaida” while also broadcasting pro-regime propaganda. Abu Mhio, a rebel media activist claims, “When we will be free, [Syrian TV] will be dead.”

If Assad controls all of the media in the country he can prevent the successes of the rebels from being reported which lowers their support and prevents more people from getting involved. In order to ensure that the world and the Syrian people actually know what is going on in Syria they must record it for themselves, even if it is emotionally tolling and life-threatening.

Abdulrahman was arrested once for video-recording a protest on his campus. After being beaten and made to sign a piece of paper claiming he was an informant, he was released and continued filming for the rebels. He has also filmed the dead in the streets to show the toll of the fighting. “I filmed one of the children killed last week. We hadn’t eaten all day because of Ramadan. But afterwards I couldn’t touch any food.”

In previous years rebels have not had such technological access to aid them in their cause. Hafez al-Assad, the current ruler’s father, ruled Syria from 1970 and was responsible for destroying the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city of Hama in 1982, killing at least 10,000 people. One rebel fighter explained to the Christian Science Monitor, “His father destroyed Hama in a few days, but there was no TV there and no internet to show the world. But today we have the internet, we photograph and film and have Al Jazeera, so people know. They can see what is happening.”

Few journalists have been allowed within Syria in the recent months of fighting, but those that have, have received threats. One Guardian journalist received a death threat via a tweet from a member of the regime stating, “I pray every night that you die.”

Those journalists that are allowed in the country are also not provided a lot of access. Another journalist, Alex Thomson, tweeted “Syrian government is losing the PR war” when they refused to let him interview or record the Syrian military.

Ultimately, winning the media war will be just as important as winning the physical war for both sides. The rebels have succeeded in many ways but they must take Aleppo in order to really start making changes. According to Burhan Ghalioun, a member of the Syrian National Council currently in Paris, if the rebels take Aleppo “there will be nothing more that will stand in the way of the Free Syrain Army. Hama, Homs, to the outskirts of Damascus have in large part been liberated.”

Image Courtesy of  Omar Chatriwala

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President Bashar al-Assad has not made a public appearance since the July 18 bombing which killed four of his most important security officials- including Assef Shawka, his brother-in-law. The bombing took place during an attack through rebel forces in the country’s capital city of Damascus.

A few days ago President Assad urged his army to increase fighting against rebel forces. The United States has condemned his recent declarations, and has called him a coward. U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said, “We think it’s cowardly, quite frankly, to have a man hiding out of sight, exhorting his armed forces to continue to slaughter the civilians of his own country.”

Some reports said that President Assad has fled Damascus to a safe locations like Latakia or Tartous, which are areas in which the Alawite sect, Assad’s family sect, is predominant. Other reports say he is still in Damascus. His actual whereabouts are a mystery.

Fighting in Damascus has increased in recent days, so many Syrians have decided to evacuate the capital and many of them have headed towards neighboring country Lebanon.

A Syrian opposition activist, whom alleged receiving information from a senior Syrian army officer, said that after the deadly bombing  President Assad, accompanied by his wife and three children, decided to escape to Tartous, which is a port city on the Mediterranean coast and a place where Russia has a naval base. Russia has in past months supported Assad’s regime and even vetoed, along with China, the UN intervention in Syria.

The Syrian state media, on the other hand, is alleging that Assad is still in Damascus, and showed broadcast footage of the president swearing in the new defense minister, who will replace Daoud Rajha killed in the July 18 bombing.

Another report, published by Reuters, quotes opposition forces and a Western diplomat who assure that President Assad escaped to Latakia, which is another coastal city very close to Tartous. In this city President Assad has a summer palace that is heavily guarded.

These are just the main possibilities of President Assad’s location. His location is uncertain and the situation is getting worse every day. A diplomatic solution does not seem possible, as the Arab League and the UN have tried to force President Assad to resign, to no avail. The Syrian rebels’ methods are getting more and more brutal every day; some recent videos showed atrocities committed against Assad’s regime supporters. The situation is chaotic and has already taken thousands of human lives.

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In the last months, the diplomatic relation between Russian and the United States has become tense and unstable, mainly because Russia and China vetoed the U.N. intervention on Syria. This really angered the United States, but Vladimir Putin’s recent election to the Russian presidency has not helped to solve the problem and calm things down.

Russia is the U.S.’ 20th largest trading partner in goods. The goods trade between the two countries is reported as $42.9 billion USD in total. U.S. exports to Russia were $8.3 billion dollars. U.S. goods imports from Russia totaled $34.6 billion last year. Compared to China, Russia is a small economic partner to the United States, but a very important one in other areas.

In the 19th century, Russia sold Alaska to the United States. Russia also supported the U.S. during the civil war. In fact, the 19th  century was a golden period for U.S.-Russian diplomatic relations. But the  20th century told us a completely different story. It witnessed the worst  case scenario in the diplomatic relations between the two countries: the Cold War, which was a mainly political conflict between the Soviet Union, a union of countries in which Russia was the biggest, and the United States. Even though the Cold War was going on, the U.S. and Soviet astronauts went to space together in the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission.

The Soviet Union didn’t last forever, ending in 1991. After this, relations between the two countries got better, but, like with every country, there are a lot of aspects in which both governments do not agree. This is completely normal considering both countries come from two totally different backgrounds.

Vladimir Putin returned to the Russian presidency in March, which will definitely affect the good relations that President Obama had with his precursor, Dmitri Medvedev, who was in power from 2008 to 2012. Medvedev even declared once that “these were perhaps the best three years of relations between Russia and the United States over the last decade.”

But now Putin, a former K.G.B officer, is back on the game. The man became President for the first time in 2000 and remained so until 2008 when he gave power to his chosen one, Medvedev. Yet, most analysts agree he never stopped ruling.

The first problems between the U.S. and Russia have already reappeared, and the Syria issue has been the trigger. The State Secretary Hillary Clinton accused Putin in June of shipping attack helicopters to Syria that President al-Assad could use to continue with his massacre of civilians. The Russian government responded that they only have sent weapons that can be used for self-defense.

But the problematic relations between both countries really started in February, when Russia and China vetoed the United Nations’ action on Syria. This action caused fury on the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The U.S. ambassador Susan Rice told CNN that “those that have blocked potentially the last effort to resolve this peacefully … will have any future blood spill on their hands.”

But President Obama made an announcement in June to try to calm things down. After a meeting with President Putin, he expressed the tensions can be solved although they have disagreements. Concerning the Syria issue he declared that President Putin agreed that a political process should be created in Syria in order to avoid a civil war.

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The conflict between Turkey and Syria is heating up. On Sunday, June 30, the Turkish army sent  six F-16 planes to do emergency takeoffs on their border with Syria in response to the three jets that the Syrian army sent over on Saturday. Turkey recognizes that last Saturday’s action was not a violation of Turkish air space, but the nearness of these planes was enough for them to order a response.

The reality is that Turkey has become more aggressive towards Syria since a Turkish F-4 was brought down by the Syrian troops on  June 22. Turkish response came fast. Their armed forces deployed launchers and anti areal batteries missiles against Syria. Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said that they will “regard… as a threat” any type of military element that gets close to the frontier.

Officially, Turkey does not want confrontation with Syria, but the reality is that they are putting pressure on others, such as the United States, to stop the Syrian conflict. Turkey has gone from friendship to criticism. Now they support the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army. They also asked for the creation of intermediate zones and humanitarian corridors in the border area.

Meanwhile, NATO has insisted that it is necessary to find a political solution, but has approved the steps that Turkey is following in order to defend their land and population.

In the other side, Rusia says that the felled Turkish airship on June 22 was flying in Syrian air space. Moscow assures the public that they have evidence that can prove it. Turkey has not taken long to defend themselves and has made a response that denies the information that accuses Turkey of flying in Syria’s air space.

The Syrian Minister of Information has stated that the armed forces shot down the plane by mistake because they thought that it was an Israeli craft. As the Minister explained, most of the Turkish and Israelis aircrafts are made by the United States. This is what confused the Syrian forces, and made them think that it was an Israeli plane.

In the meantime, the Syrian Civil War, which according to United Nations has caused more than 10,000 victims, keeps on going. A prominent Syrian Al Assad opposition, Fawaaz al Tello, has made a call to the United States asking for help. He is demanding weapons for the rebels, for fighting the Al Assad regime. The Free Syrian Army has expressed that they need weapons such as rocket launchers in order to destroy the tanks and army helicopters from the Syrian Army.

The United States does not seem to be convinced to give weapons to the Syrians because most of the rebels are Islamist, so there is a level of suspicion surrounding it. What it seems clear is that all of the steps need to be given careful consideration because the conflict could explode at any moment.

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United Nations Peace Envoy, Kofi Annan, has decided to hold an international conference regarding the ever-growing war in Syria, which has left several killed and severely injured. The meeting will take place in Geneva this coming Saturday, but cause for concern is arising, as the United States is having mixed emotions about being a part of the conference.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has confirmed that despite the United State’s lukewarm feelings about the conference, it will be in attendance, in addition to representatives from various countries including Russia, China, Britain, France, Turkey, and others from European Union, as well as the Arab League.

According to Annan, the purpose of the meeting, “is to forge a consensus on the terms for a political solution among international players with stakes and influence in the Syrian conflict over terms for a political solution. The U.N. envoy believes that the best hope of pressing the combatants on the ground to observe his peace plan to which they signed up in April but have not implemented, is for the foreign powers on whose support they variously depend to agree on terms.”

And the main problem that needs to be addressed this coming Saturday, is the conflict in different approaches and decisions that Russia and the United States both want to make. One of the countries that has yet to announce its appearance is Iran, which is a key factor in resolving conflict. “I have made it quite clear that I believe Iran should be part of the solution,” Annan said in Geneva last Friday. “If we continue the way we are going and competing with each other, it could lead to destructive competition and everyone will pay the price.”

The reason for both Iran and Saudia Arabia being excluded from the conference is based on the Obama Administration not wanting them there. According to Tony Karan, reporter for Time World, “The Obama Administration cited Iran’s role in backing up Syria’s bloody crackdown to declare Tehran’s involvement a “red line” for participating in the Geneva talks, and Annan presumably left out Saudi Arabia as a compensatory gesture to Russia which insists that those countries arming and funding Syria’s rebels share major responsibility for escalating the conflict.

A state department official told reporters last week that “If Kofi Annan can get the proposed participants to agree on such a plan for political transition then there will be a meeting, but that’s what we need to find out before we go to any meeting. There’s no point in going just for the sake of it.”

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Washington, U.S.A. - Professor Habib Malik of the Lebanese American University has called on the United States and its European allies to “draw a thick red line” around religious liberty as it responds to the ongoing violence in Syria and the Middle East, and to provide “active protection” for minority rights in the region.

Dr. Malik issued this call this week at CSI’s 2012 conference series on The Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East. Malik is a professor of history and the author of “Islamism and the Future of Christians in the Middle East.”

In Syria, Malik warned that the “first wave” of opposition leaders has been replaced by a “militant Islamist grouping” that engages in kidnappings and beheadings, including attacks on religious pilgrims.  Given these attacks, Malik said it is impossible to “take seriously” the opposition Syrian National Council’s assurances to Syrian religious minorities, given on June 10, that they will be protected after the regime falls.

Malik faulted Western powers for promoting their “democracy” agenda with the help of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whom Malik termed “fanatic states” and “arch-repressors” that are “financing and supporting a militant Sunni Salafi Wahabi replacement in Syria and indeed anywhere else in the region they can manage it.”

Malik said that “if present trends continue,” the “better-funded and better-organized” Islamist parties are likely to rise to power in most of the Middle Eastern countries undergoing political change, with adverse consequences for Christians and other non-Muslim communities.

“Without these Christian communities,” he said, “pluralism is all but dead in the Middle East, and along with it, any real chances for genuine freedoms and democracy.”

To avoid these outcomes, Malik recommended that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton try to reach a “comprehensive deal” with Russia to put an end to the Syrian conflict and the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, pressure Saudi Arabia and Qatar to “stop fanning the flames of Sunni fanaticism,” and defend religious pluralism as an “absolutely integral component” of democratization in the Middle East.

Dr. John Eibner, the CEO of CSI-USA, said that Prof. Malik’s analysis “reinforced the urgent necessity for Christians and others of good will throughout the the world to press their governments to defend the Middle East’s religious minorities.”

CSI has issued a Genocide Warning for endangered religious minorities in the Islamic Middle East, and has called on President Barack Obama to make their survival a priority as the United States responds to the Middle East’s ongoing political turmoil.

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The Monarchy of Thailand is fed up over years of Thailand’s citizens criticizing the government and Thailand traditions. And, as more people are resorting to the Internet to speak out about their beliefs that collide with ancient Thailand traditions, the government has decided to finally take action.

According to Mobiledia, the government is “realizing the serious threats the technology, especially its social and mobile elements, can bring to governance and traditional beliefs. Countries around the globe are struggling to balance their population’s embrace of mobile communications with order, public safety and streamlining government affairs, and the challenges are beginning to show.”

Because governments in Kuwait, Turkey and Thailand revolve around what they believe, as each other’s survival, they believe that the citizens of these countries are damaging to each countries beliefs and values, while also damaging foreign relations with other countries. (Who is “they,” the government or the citizens?  What do you mean by “each other’s survival?” Can you rephrase this so it is more clear?)

The legal case that has grabbed international media attention revolves around Thailand resident Chiranuch Premchaiporn, a webmaster who manages a local news site, after she insulted Thailand’s king, 84-year-old Bhumibol Adulyadej. According to the ITTO (Who is the ITTO?), “Premchaiporn did not post the material, she is responsible for its message under Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act, a law which criminalizes hosting anti-monarchical content and puts content providers like Premchaiporn at risk for prison time if they fail to censor such comments quickly.” She had 11 days to remove the comments from her site but considering she failed to do so, Premchaiporn was sentenced to spend eight months in prison. Her sentencing was based on each comment that was derogatory toward the government, king, queen, or an heir.

Thailand has extremely strict consequences for those who go up against their government, with the standard penalty being a one year prison sentence for each insulting comment that is posted. However, Premachaiporn’s sentence was reduced based on her cooperation.

Thailand has extremely strict, what they call, “lese-majeste” laws which prohibits the public expression of criticism against the monarchy in any media form whether it be television, print, radio or the Internet.

According to Reporter Kendra Srivastava, “the sentence reflects Thailand’s long history of censorship, which is gaining attention and sparking controversy as technology advances in the digital age. Lese-majeste laws are also coming under fire with demands for reform due to the recent death of a 62-year-old man who was serving a 20-year jail sentence for insulting the king. A petition of almost 27,000 signatures calling for reform of the laws was delivered to the Thai parliament yesterday in response to the man’s death.”

Fortunately for other countries in Asia and the Middle East, governments are looking at ways to go about the penalties of violating censorship laws among its citizens. Rather than punishment, countries like Iran and Syria are exploring ways to limit the Internet’s reach to citizens by not allowing access to sites that can give them information to retaliate and denounce their governments as well as forbidding them to insult the religions and politics of their countries.

While Thailand is censoring the media to prevent the denouncement of their ancient beliefs that go centuries back, it might actually end up hurting the country’s future.

According to Srivastava, “Google called Premchaiporn’s sentence a threat to the potential of Thailand’s Internet economy.”

However, the real questions still remain. How far is censorship going to go? And, how far are these countries willing to risk the free speech of their citizens in order to save face for their governments? Is all this censorship worth the protests, deaths and detriment to these countries economies?

Image Courtesy of  AJP / Shutterstock.com

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Etihad airway, the national airlines of United Arab Emirates (UAE), has announced its plans to have direct, daily nonstop flights from Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, to São Paulo, Brazil starting in June 2013.

São Paulo would be the first South American Destination in Etihad’s list; the new route would be to São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport, the main international airport in the city.

According to Business Traveler websites, Mr. James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ President and CEO, said “Brazil is a logical next step for us and will mark the sixth continent we serve and our coming of age as a truly global airline.”

Etihad airlines would be the second UAE airline to have direct flights from the country to a Brazilian city; Emirates airlines was the first.

In 2014, Brazil will be the hosting country of the FIFA World Cup. UAE in general, and especially Abu Dhabi, will be the main hub for the football fans and sports journalists from Asia and the Middle East looking for direct flights to Brazil.

Also, São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport would be a great transit point for the connecting traveler to other destinations in Brazil and other Latin American Countries. The airport is connected to all South American airports directly by different airlines.

Abu Dhabi will be a major connecting point to their original homeland for the large Arab community in Brazil and other Latin American countries. Most Arabs in Brazil are originally from Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

Additionally, it will ease the travel for students from Middle Eastern and Asian countries between Brazil and their countries for holidays and after graduation. Brazil is considered an attractive education spot for the scholar who is looking for high quality education with low tuition fees and living costs.

The new flights between the two cities will give a push to the growing business between the two countries. Brazil is considered to be the 4th largest trading partner to the UAE, with trade business valued about 2.85 billion US dollars. Officials in the two countries are hoping to expand the trade relation to 10 billion US dollars in the next 5 years.

According to the National, the official UAE English newspaper, Mr. João de Mendonça Lima Neto, the Brazilian ambassador to UAE, stated “We are witnessing significant growth in the bilateral relations between Brazil and the UAE and we are certain that Etihad Airways flights will create new opportunities for government, trade, tourism and cultural exchanges.”

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Because so many countries are starting to censor what their citizens can access on the internet, or ban websites from being seen entirely, citizens have found a way to access those sites through a program known as Green Simurgh.

According to ComputerWorld, “Green Simurgh is an anti-censorship application that routes a computer’s outbound connections to a server located in the U.S. This allows the software’s users to bypass network filters and access Internet resources that would normally be banned by their ISP. Green Simurgh doesn’t require any installation and can run directly from USB memory sticks, which makes it suitable for users who access the Internet from cafes and public computers.”

Unfortunately for users however, several copies of Green Simurgh that have been distributed have been found to have a Trojan horse and malware that reveals the internet user’s each and every keystroke they make. According to a University of Toronto laboratory, Citizen Lab (known for its specialization in researching digital media, human rights and global security), the software has been used in Iran since 2009 and Syrian users have also begun to rely on it.

“It has recently come to our attention that this software is being recommended and circulated among Syrian Internet users for bypassing censorship in their country,” said Citizen Lab technical adviser Morgan Marquis-Boire in a blog post on Friday. “This information led to the discovery and analysis of a back-doored version of this software.”

The malicious version of Green Simurgh comes in a package Simurgh-setup.zip from file sharing websites, one of which is 4shared.com.

Chester Wisniewski, a senior security adviser at antivirus vendor Sophos explains how users were convinced to use the malware version of Green Simurgh:

“When run on a Windows machine, the rogue installer drops a legitimate copy of the Green Simurgh software in the Program Files directory, but also installs a computer Trojan horse that runs in the background. [The Trojan horse] keeps a log of your username, machine name, every window clicked and keystroke entered,” he said.

 ”It attempts to submit these logs to some servers located in the United States, but registered to an entity that appears to be based in Saudi Arabia. Considering that thousands of users depend on the legitimate Simurgh software, it’s likely that a lot more people have been impacted by this malware than by Flame — a recently discovered cyber espionage threat that has received a lot of attention in the media.”

The creators of Green Simurgh have sent out a warning on their website to their users regarding the malware software, and for future users to only download the software directly from the Simurgh website itself. For those who have already been infected, the company recommends to run an anti-virus program and remove the program immediately.

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San Francisco, U.S.A. - In 2010, the self-immolation of a produce vendor in Tunisia catalyzed a series of massive democratic revolutions and uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

These events would come to be known as the Arab Spring. In some countries, strongmen who had held power for decades collapsed under the force of youthful popular movements. In others, despots violently and mercilessly clamped down on demonstrators.

Now That We Have Tasted Hope  is a collaboration between San Francisco–based publishers McSweeney’s and Byliner Inc. The substantial e-book collects the most important primary source documents from those historic uprisings, telling the story of the Arab Spring from the perspective of those who lived it—men and women, young and old, from all sectors of society: musicians, poets, writers, political activists, actors, labor unionists, journalists, workers, and professionals.

Voices from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria provide a comprehensive and captivating narrative of the momentous events of last year. From the harrowing accounts of tortured protesters to the hollow appeals of crumbling regimes and the triumphant songs of revolutionaries, these documents catalog the events of the Arab Spring in all its complexity and drama. They will remain fresh and urgent for a long time to come.

Now That We Have Tasted Hope is edited by Daniel Gumbiner, the associate director of the Zeitoun Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the continued rebuilding and social advancement of New Orleans and to the promotion of understanding between people of disparate faiths around the world.

The foreword is written by Diana Abouali, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College, and the introduction is by Elliott Colla, coeditor of the e-magazine Jadaliyya and author of Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, and Egyptian Modernity.

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Two months ago, journalists Adem Ozkose and Hamit Coskun were flown to Tehran to do some filming for a documentary. What they did not plan on documenting however, was the captivity they have endured for the past two months.

Ozkose, a reporter and Coskun, a cameraman, both with the magazine Gerçek Hayat and the daily Milat, were waiting for a plane to go home when they were captured on March 10.

“The journalists, as well as some Syrians who were accompanying them, were abducted by militia members known as shabiha at a checkpoint outside a Shiite town in the predominantly Sunni province,” Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organization which defends the rights of journalists by advocating freedom of the press and the freedom of information, said.

According to the shabiha, they were abducted for illegally entering the country.

In the northwestern city of Idleb, a small Shiite town where the Turks were taken, rebel leaders attempted to negotiate with Syrian authorities for the journalists to be released, but were unsuccessful.

According to the IHH, a Turkish Islamist humanitarian non-governmental organization, it was announced on May 5 “that it had managed to visit the two detained journalists in Damascus. Turgut Alp Boyraz, the head of foreign news at Milat, said they were able to telephone their families on May 5 for the first time since their capture.”

Since the uprising of the Syrian people against President Bashar Assad started 14 months ago, relations between Turkey and Syria have worsened. According to Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Iran is said to have played a crucial role in the release of the prisoners, acting somewhat as a “mediator” between the two countries.

Additionally according to the LA Times, “since the Syrian uprising began last year in March, the country has been a dangerous place for foreign journalists to work. Most are not allowed to enter the nation and those who have received permission are often monitored. As a result, some journalists have sneaked into the country.”

And indeed it has become increasingly dangerous for journalists to report in foreign countries. Since the beginning of this year, six journalists have died as a result of working in a foreign country, including Remi Ochlik and Marie Colvin, who were killed while reporting on a monthlong bombardment of the Baba Amr neighborhood in Homs, according to Reporters Without Borders.

“Their release is a big relief,” the group said regarding the Turkish journalists. “But more than 37 journalists and citizen journalists are still detained in Syria. We must not forget them.”

Both Ozkose and Coskun were reported to be in good health and after being released on Saturday, will soon be reunited with their families.

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If until recently, the problematic situation in Syria was thought to be a temporary instability, then today, it can be said that there is a possibility of civil war in the Arab country. The protests against the president, Bashar al-Assad, and his regime grew into a continued and strenuous struggle that evoked the public opinion. How long this will last is unknown.

It is too late for the Syrians to peacefully extinguish the bloody conflagration. The victims of the uprising are increasing all the time, and by now, they exceed 7,600 people.  This includes both civilians and military men. Whether Syria will have the success of Egypt is one of the most asked questions, concerning society all around the world, because the national issue that started almost a year ago, has gradually turned into a universal one.

The correspondent for London’s ‘The Sunday Times’, Marie Colvin, and the French photographer, Remi Ochlic, were cruelly killed in the city of Homs during a siege. Until now, people have not been thinking about the jeopardy and the consequences of this uprising, but the tragic death of the two journalists in Syria proved that the situation in the Arab world is going off the rails.

On February 24, in Tunisia, a meeting was held by the “Friends of Syria”. During the meeting, around 60 countries insisted on stopping the outrage in troubled Syria. The world leaders unanimously decided that more serious measures against the Assad’s regime need to be taken. They are considering issuing an ultimatum to the Assad government. Their main goal is to send aid in order to help the civilians of the revolutionary country.

Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State, appealed to all nations to put bans on the import of oil from Syrians as well as on traveling to and from the Arab country. According to Clinton, it is the high cost that the Syrian officials have to pay for not taking into account the opinion of the international community. She also added that the U.S. will allot $10 million in aid to the Syrian citizens.

Only the leaders of China and Russia still support the Syrian president. They were against the UN resolutions of ending the Assad’s regime, stating that the these declarations will cause more violence in the Arab country. Some diplomats connected the actions of China and Russia to their previous union during the Cold War, but one is sure, with their attitude towards the UN resolutions and the current affairs in Western Asia, they incurred the sharp tongue of the U.S. Secretary of State.

Hilary Clinton described their veto regarding the resolutions as “despicable”. “It is just despicable, and I ask, ‘Whose side are they on?’ They are clearly not on the side of the Syrian people,” she said during the meeting in Tunisia.When the Arab Spring will come is still not apparent, but it is an incontrovertible fact that the uprising has transformed into a universal issue that has strained relations between world leaders.

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Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum flailed against each other through most of the Republican presidential primary in Mesa, Arizona on Wednesday night, but both assailed President Obama for not taking a more aggressive stance towards Iran.

Romney called Obama’s policy towards Iran, “his biggest failure,” and said the Iranian threat to stop the flow of oil to the west and drive up gas prices “pales in comparison” to the threat of the Iranian regime getting their hands on a nuclear weapon.

The United States should have intervened during the Green Revolution in 2009 when protesters rose up against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Romney added. When the Iranian regime pressed ahead with efforts to produce nuclear fuel, the US should have put in place “crippling sanctions,” he said.

Santorum agreed that Obama hasn’t supported sanctions and is too timid to stand up to the Iranians. “We need a new president or we will have a cataclysmic situation,” said Santorum. He agreed that Obama should have come to the aid of the pro-democracy movement in Iran, but stumbled a bit during his tirade, calling Iran “the world’s most most prolific proliferator of terrorism.”

Both men agreed that the United States should do more to help the pro-democracy movement in Syria, although they stopped short of calling for direct military intervention. Santorum called Syria “a puppet for Iran” in the Middle East and Romney said the turmoil in Syria presented a critical time for the United States to change the balance of power in the Middle East. He said the US should consider turning to Turkey or other allies in the region to help overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Santorum stumbled again when he said that Obama had not demanded that Assad leave office. In a statement to the United Nations on February 4, Obama said Assad should step down, stop the killing of his own people, and allow the pro-democracy movement to run its course. It was the latest of many similar statements Obama has made since the protests in Syria began last year.

Newt Gingrich joined the chorus of tough talk, but added that if the United States got rid of the Environmental Protection Agency and eased restrictions on oil exploration, the country would produce so much gasoline that it could ignore Iran’s threats to stop oil shipments to the west.

Gingrich said he wouldn’t necessarily oppose a preemptive strike against Iran by the Israelis. “If you think a madman is about to get nuclear weapons and you think he is going to use those nuclear weapons, then you have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating the capacity to get nuclear weapons,” said Gingrich. Ron Paul struck his usual contrarian pose on foreign policy, saying that the US has already overextended and nearly bankrupted itself with militarily intervention.

“There is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapon,” said Paul, to a chorus of cheers and jeers from the audience. And even if Iran did acquire a weapon, he continued, that’s not an excuse for immediate military action. Paul said the Soviet Union had over 30 thousand nuclear weapons, “but we still talked to them.” Eventually the Soviet Union collapsed, he continued. “It was because they bankrupted themselves.”

Paul said that al-Qaeda’s intention was to “bog down” the United States with military intervention in the Middle East, and so far, they’ve succeeded. “We’ve spent more than $4 trillion dollars over the last ten years in the Middle East,” said Paul, suggesting that if those who favor military intervention against Iran won’t listen to constitutional or moral arguments, perhaps they will listen to a financial one.

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The goal of our diplomatic activity is to “stop the violence, stop the massacres, find a new stability for Syria: a great country that must respect the rights of all”. Speaking was Minister Giulio Terzi, at the close of the 5+5 meeting at Villa Madama. “We support the Arab League project”, underscored Terzi, explaining that “we are acting in concert with our EU partners”.

Minister Terzi also referred to the “Friends of Syria” meeting taking place in Tunis on Friday 24 February: a diplomatic initiative of great relevance, not least in view of its inclusive nature. A point that was underscored by the Tunisian Foreign Minister, Rajik Abdessalem, who co-chaired the “5+5” meeting with Minister Terzi.

The Syrian National Council and the Syrian opposition have been invited to the Tunis meeting, said Abdessalem. He explained that “representatives of civil society will also be present, while the opposition will have its own status” at the event. The Minister underscored that no-one wants further “Iraqi scenarios” for Syria but that a “strong message” for Bashar Assad’s government must emerge from the Friends of Syria meeting.

“A radical reform of the political system is needed”, said Abdessalem. He pointed out that “the integrity of Syrian territory” must be protected to ensure that “Iraqi scenarios” are not created. The Tunis meeting will bring together representatives of all the countries concerned with bringing an end to the violence in Syria. It will reiterate the utter condemnation of civilian killings, added Abdessalem, who noted that “the Syrian National Council and other members of the opposition in Damascus have been invited to the summit, where they will have their own status”.

The French Foreign Minister, Alain Juppé, speaking in the margins of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum in Villa Madama, said that “we need to press the Syrian opposition to unite, to organise and to take into account all the sensitivities. The sensitivities of those who are ‘inside’ and those who are ‘out’, and of the various communities who must be represented if the opposition wants to become a partner in the political dialogue that will find a way out of the crisis”.

Much of the discussion at the Dialogue for the Mediterranean ministerial focused on the Syrian crisis, not least in light of the Friends of Syria meeting of 24 February 2012 in Tunis. Juppé commented that “we agree on the goal of supporting the Arab League plan and halting the violence and repression. And we also agree that the process to end the crisis must be a political process”. The head of French diplomacy added: “we hope that the Syrian opposition will be present at the Tunis meeting”.

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The international organization Human Rights Watch released a report on Thursday, December 15, concerning violations and abuses in Syria committed by security forces since the beginning of anti-government protests and demonstrations in March 2011.

The 94-pages report called “By All Means Necessary!” is the result of the investigations conducted independently by Human Rights Watch in Syria, and it is based on statements of hundreds of victims and witnesses. In particular, it focuses on the violence and killings that occurred between April and August 2011, in seven of Syria’s fourteen governorates: Damascus, Daraa, Homs, Idlib, Tartous, Deir al-Zor, and Hama.

Sixty-three defectors, both from the army and the intelligence agencies, were interviewed separately and accurately. They provided detailed information and reports on the violations, the abuses, and the orders they received from commanders of the Syrian army at any level for repressive actions, violence, and attacks on civilian protesters.

The orders were to stop the protests “by all means necessary”. The people who were interviewed had firsthand knowledge of the violations. Their statements provide accounts and evidence of the systematic abuse on civilians and of the responsibility of the government forces for these abuses.

Anna Neistat, an associate director for emergencies at Human Rights Watch who participated directly in the investigations for the report, said and wrote to CNN, “But responsibility for these crimes does not stop with the commanders on the ground.

Under international criminal law, al-Assad, as commander in chief of all forces in Syria, bears responsibility for the most serious crimes committed by his forces – even if he did not order them – to the extent that he knew, or should have known, about the abuses and failed to prevent them.”

A quote from the report reads, “Human Rights Watch’s findings show that military commanders and officials in the intelligence agencies gave both direct and standing orders to use lethal force against the protesters (at least 20 such cases are documented in detail in this report) as well as to unlawfully arrest, beat, and torture the detainees.

In addition, senior military commanders and high-ranking officials, including President Bashar al-Assad and the heads of the intelligence agencies, bear command responsibility for violations committed by their subordinates to the extent that they knew, or should have known, of the abuses, but failed to take action to stop them.

Given the widespread public and international criticism of the abuses, it would be incredible for al-Assad to argue that he did not know.” Hence, what comes out from this report is the commitment and the responsibility of the Syrian regime, and its president, in crimes against humanity during the crackdown of the anti-government protests.

The non-involvement and non-responsibility claims of President Bashar Al-Assad were demolished by the witnesses’ accounts and statements documented in the report of Human Rights Watch.

Moreover, the claims of Syrian authorities about the violations and the violence having been committed and organized by armed terrorist gangs that were “incited and sponsored from abroad” and by foreign countries, crumble in view of what has been reported and documented. During the nine-month crackdown, the number of victims is estimated around 5,000 people, of whom at least 300 were children.

Despite the sanctions imposed recently by the Arab League on Syria and the increasing isolation of the country, the violence and the abuses did not stop, and there seems to be no change in the regime’s police. Maybe the worst has yet to come.

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The U.S. is going to send its top ambassador back to Damascus, Syria, a senior Obama administration official said. They came to this decision after recalling him on October 22 because of burgeoning violence. Ambassador Robert Ford returned on Tuesday, said the official, who wanted to remain anonymous because of the sensitive situation.

The administration agreed that the Syrian ambassador was needed for advancing the goals of U.S. policy and as a witness to the violence that is occurring there. In response to this, Syria recalled Ford. The Syrian ambassador was supposed to return in late November, but he delayed his trip due to security reasons.

Ford will meet with opposition figures when he arrives to Syria, US officials said. The presence of Ford in the country was meant to be a symbol by President Obama. He wanted to engage Damascus, which had previously had no U.S. ambassador after the Bush administration cut off ties when Syria allegedly played a role in the assassination of a political candidate in Lebanon in 2005.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, held a meeting with the opposing Syrian figures while Ford returned to Damascus. In Geneva, Clinton talked to seven Syrian pro-reform activists and said she would like to hear their plans on how to establish a democratic government if they succeed in overthrowing President Assad and his regime.

Her words were almost an endorsement and an apparent sign that the United States wants to work with the people that may take on leadership roles. “Obviously, a democratic transition is more than removing the Assad regime. It means setting Syria on the path of the rule of law,” Clinton said to the activists, who are exiles that live in Europe and are a part of the Syrian National Council. The council is one of seven groups for Assad foes.

“He will continue the work he was doing previously; namely, delivering the United States’ message to the people of Syria; providing reliable reporting on the situation on the ground; and engaging with the full spectrum of Syrian society on how to end the bloodshed and achieve a peaceful political transition,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner stated.

He believes that one of the most effective ways to show the United States supports Syria’s people is to send Ford back. In the past, Ford incensed the Syrian regime when he paid a visit to protest centers outside of Damascus and supported the anti-government uprising. These incidences have increased tensions between Damascus and Washington, and Damascus has accused the U.S. of trying to incite violence in Syria.

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Unconfirmed reports from activist in the eight-month-old uprising of the people of Syria say that 50 people were killed in a violent ambush Monday, making it “the highest death toll on a single day in months,” according to a journalist from the New York Times.

Similar reports have been coming in from around the country this month and the United Nations estimate that more than 3.500 people have been killed by the regime so far. The clash on Monday happened in the southern province of Daraa where security forces were confronted by armed insurgence.

Human rights groups have warned that the regime is covering up its violent crackdown on dissidents and have failed to comply with the agreed peace plan. The situation is extremely pressing for President Bashar Assad as his long-time allies are turning their backs to the regime’s continuous crackdown on protesters.

Turkey and Iran have used firm rhetoric, advising Mr. Assad to step down. During talks at the weekends, the Arab League decided to suspend Syria’s membership in response to the regime’s inability to solve the political uprising.

This is a massive blow to the Syrian position in the Middle East but an interesting overall development to the sanction imposed on Syria by western communities — the European Union imposed more sanctions on individuals suspected of aiding the oppression of protesters, according to VoAnews.com.

On Tuesday, Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that his country has lost confidence in the Syrian regime and warned that the brutal crackdown will put Assad on the “list of leaders who ‘feed on blood’.”

A harsher remark came from King Abdullah, the monarch of Jordan, who has faced Arab Spring-fueled protests in his country as well. In an interview with the BBC, King Abdullah said: “If Bashar has the interest of the country, he would step down, but he would also create an ability to reach out and start a new phase of Syrian political life.”

Syria has responded to the Arab League step by denouncing it as a “dangerous step,” says VoAnews.com. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem has also accused the country’s Arab opponents of “conspiring with the United States.”

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Rarely do you find a person with an interest in Middle Eastern politics, or a citizen of the region who is not familiar with the renowned Al-Assad family of Syria. The Assads, originally from Al-Qurdaha in North West Syria, are members of the minority Al-Alawite sect (branch of Islam) that have ruled and controlled Syria’s foreign and domestic policies for over four decades with an iron fist.

In comparison with the region’s dictators, the Assad family has created an infamous reputation for being the Middle East’s most violent and brutal regime. Father of current President Bashar Al-Assad, Hafez Al-Assad’s rise to power took place throughout 1964-1971.

A member of the Syrian Ba’athist party that in practice was ruling Syria at that time, he jumped through military ranks which resulted in him moving from Major to General in less than one year. This was followed by an appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, Minister of Defense, and finally President after an intra-party coup which resulted in the 1970 Syrian Corrective Revolution.

Throughout his rule, Al Assad’s reign was marked with the use of extreme violence to sustain his rule. A famous landmark of his career was the 1982 Hama Massacre which was personally conducted by Rifaat Al Assad (Hafiz’s brother) and executed by the Syrian army. The target of the massacre was to brutally suppress a Sunni opposition against Al-Assad and ended with the death of some 40,000 citizens.

Ironically, Bashar al Assad reached power in a similar way to his father. Residing in London to finish his medical residency as an ophthalmologist, he was called back to Syria in 1994 after the sudden death of his brother Bassil, who was initially being groomed from birth to be his father’s successor.

All eyes turned to Bashar who made Colonel by 1999, and following his father death in 2000, he was voted as leader of the Ba’ath Party, President, and Commander in Chief through a public referendum.

The referendum that was voted on the day Hafiz died, lowered the minimum age for a Presidential candidate to 34, Bashar’s age at the time, and Bashar was made President with an astonishing 97.2% of the votes.

The horror of the regime today

The hand of the Syrian regime does not only reach its own territories, it extends and spreads fear across its border through several political allies that might do the unthinkable to please it. Despite that, one should not see the suffering of the brave Syrian people and remain silent anymore.

What you see on the news or internet of shooting or bombarding or physical abuse are only minor tricks of what the regime really has up its sleeves. The real horror presents itself in the inhumane torture that goes on in prisons and investigations rooms.

Bear in mind that the Syrian regime does not rely on physical torture only, its main objective is to achieve severe psychological damage to their victims via the latter. With the extensive use of force and violence, the Syrian Regime aims to break the will of all citizens that oppose it through degrading human value in ways you can’t imagine.

Through planning, training or “experimenting” on a handful of citizens, and execution of their means using large masses, the Syrian regime has displayed high professionalism in its ways and earned first place in comparison with other Arab governments as the Middle East’s most ruthless and vicious regime.

The methods of torture vary depending on the investigators sadistic ratio of pleasure or how bad they need information to unjustly charge someone with a crime, which makes what went on in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo a walk in the park.

Men, women, and children whipped with stinging electric wires. Spark plugs wired to car batteries being attached to victims’ toes, fingers, or even genitals with high current electricity running through them as their tormentor pleases.

Prisoners forced to drink a large quantity of liquids and then tying up genitals, thus forbidding the victims from using the bathroom and making them feel like their bladder will literally explode. The latest case was the holding down of prisoners’ faces towards the breach (rear) of an RPG launcher, followed by firing the RPG, and scorching the victims’ faces with the immense heat emitted from the launching.

One of course cannot forget the “usual” methods the various Syrian governmental personnel carry out. Beatings, blindfolding, handcuffing, deprivation from sleep, and being squeezed into tires are means of sending a message to all that oppose the Syrian regime.
Following China and Russia’s veto in the Security Council session to condemn Syria’s acts of violence on its own people, the regime freely continues to carry on all sorts of vicious methods to try and silence the voices calling for freedom.

What is more saddening is that the Syrian people have called for international interference and are being massacred on a daily basis without any official condemnation for merely political interests of super and regional powers. The apple does not fall far away from the tree, and Bashar Al Assad continues to carry his father’s legacy of brutality. How long can the Syrian people endure this, only time can tell.

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With the world always having a country or two in rebellious uproar, there is always one denominator that seems to be the main cause: Money. You could see it in the Tunisian Revolution in late December 2010, the Egyptian Revolution in late January 2011, the ongoing Libyan Civil War that started in February, and the uprising in Syria that began in March.

The governments of these country had in one way or the other blocked certain rights of the citizens which led to mass protest. In some cases, like in Egypt, the main cause for protest revolved around a rise in poverty and massive unemployment. But what a lot of people focused on throughout the Arab Spring movement was that the citizens who revolted were those whose basic freedoms were being denied them.

In the previous dictatorial regimes, the ability to exersize freedom of speech has been seriously hampered by the authorities, blocking internet or social networking access. According to Dan Robles, founder of the Ingenesist Project and a blogger on several top social media communities, even though the regime in Egypt had a lot of money, oil, and guns, the Egyptian government was taken down by what he calls “social currency”.

Social currency, or ‘Rallods’ according to Robles, is “all value that is not directly articulated with Dollars.” This form of currency is regarded the most valuable and important form of currency that can be obtained in this world; however, you will never see it used in economic situations by the government.

According to Robles, a society cannot “try to produce an airplane, a sandwich, or a surgical procedure without intellect, creativity, compassion, empathy, ethics, social values, or community awareness”. Social currency is the only type of currency a community will essentially need in the production of anything of greater importance, and it could cause problems if it wasn’t included and drawn upon in the production process.

As seen in the recent uprisings and revolutions throughout the middle eastern world, the people have and are using their social currency in order to obtain the rights and freedoms that human being desires. Along with that, social currency is also helping citizens obtain the other forms of currency important for survival, money.

The challenge for the world, which could take some time, is to convey and utilise all forms of value in an economic system. According to Robles, this change in the economy is already underway and we will soon be able to exchange Rallods with Dollars every day. This could lead to countries with healthier economies — relying not only on contribution from the government, but from the people as well.
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Turkey has proposed its new vision for a new system in the Middle East based on an alliance with Egypt, at a time when the Arab Spring continues to stir revolutions and popular uprisings against various rulers of the region.

According to The Washington Post, this proposition was presented by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davut Oglu. Oglu’s proposal came after weeks of deteriorating and strained relations with both Syria and Israel, and following Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest visit to various Arab countries including Egypt.

Oglu accompanied Ardugan alongside 280 Turkish business men to Egypt and he stated that over $1 Billion were signed in contracts in one day. Turkey holds Israel responsible for the collapse of the relations between both states because of its refusal to apologize to the Turkish government and people, as well as compensating for the victims of the Gaza flotilla incident.

Oglu also accused Syrian President Bashar Al Assad of being dishonest after Turkish officials gave the latter a final chance to save his regime by ceasing the unjust and violent suppression of Syrian protestors demanding change, which has not stopped.

Oglu is seen as the architect of successful Turkish foreign policies in the Middle East in which Turkey has emerged as both a credible and imperative player with the Islamic world in the turbulent region.

This alliance is proposed on the basis that both countries possess two of the most powerful armies in the region, are of the most populated, and able to exert a considerable amount of influence; in a time where Oglu explained that the US’ control of the Middle East is decreasing steadily.

“This will not be an axis against any other country – not Israel, not Iran, not any other country, but this will be an axis of democracy, real democracy, this will be an axis of democracy of the two biggest nations in our region, from the north to the south, from the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley in Sudan,” he added.

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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

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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

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Hundreds of Syrians have already fled their country and human rights groups say more than 1,300 civilians have been killed in the Syrian conflict since mid-March. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a press conference last week: “It’s very clear to us that unless the Syrian forces immediately end their attacks and their provocations that are not only affecting their own citizens but endangering the potential of border clashes then we’re going to see an escalation of conflict in the area.” At last Friday’s prayers, at least 20 civilians were shot by security forces and hundreds were arrested in the gathered protests. The government have express willingness to reform, but will the people accept the compromise?

A few weeks ago, I spoke with Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, a journalist and Master graduate in Middle East Politics with a specialty in the levant region. We spoke about his stay in the Syrian town of Aleppo between January and April 18, 2011, which collided with the outbreak of the conflict. He gave us his analysis of the situation.

How was the daily situation for you during your stay?

When I say we (from the CET Academic Program) were being monitored and watched, it wasn’t very overt but we knew that being Americans, especially being foreigners in Syria, was gonna come par with the program so we were just aware of it. But there was really no problem, I had numerous friends who were interested in human rights and they went freely back and forth to the Palestinian refugee camps [...] so for the first six to eight weeks, there were really no problems.

How do you keep up to date with the situation in the country now?

It’s certainly been difficult. Before I left, as the situation was getting worse, I spoke with a little number of my friends and we all exchanged emails, phone numbers everything [...] they all were very upset because we left very abruptly. Friendship in Syria is a very deep thing [...] so the fact that we had to leave so quickly was really hard on them but [...] I keep up to date with them, they email me, they let me know what’s going on. It’s getting more and more tricky, I have a number of friends who do participate in protests and they have right now ten different sim cards for their mobile phones, they change them a lot. Sometimes they don’t feel confident that they can send email without being tracked so, it’s become more difficult.

How would you define the initial motivation behind the protest?

It’s an interesting question, I think in many ways without the incident that occurred in Daraa, many of these things may or may no have come to light. Hindsight of course is 20/20 but the incident in Daraa that sparked all of this was a group of kids, very young people, who had written some graffiti – slogans they had heard and picked up from the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions. [...] You know, family is important and the fact that the security services arrested those people I think was extremely culturally tone-deaf, and I think it really sparked for a lot of people – it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. There’s been a lot of other incidence, arbitrary arrest, like I discussed in an op-ed piece in the Guardian [...] These kinds of things do happen, they’re not as common as they were under Hafez al-Assad, things did get better under his son but the pressure had been building. To give you another example, me and some friend would be sitting in a cafe and a friend would look to me and say ‘we need to leave and move somewhere else’ and I’d say ‘why?’ and he’s like ‘there’s security services watching us and I’m worried about us having an open conversation without problems’ so we would move – little things like that, and just living in that kind of atmosphere, I think, takes a toll after a while.

In your opinion, what keeps Assad in position?

I think it’s interesting to note a few things, one is that when Bashar al-Assad came to power, he’d promised numerous reforms and he had promised to do away with a lot of the old guard that had supported Hafez al-Assad, his father. And he did change a lot of those positions, [...] but the family dynamic of the al-Assad family is very complicated. For example, there are reports of the fact that for one, his older brother is in charge of the fourth mechanized devision which has been the division of the army they’ve been using to suppress the protest in Daraa especially and to occupy several cities and his brother-in-law, I believe, is in charge of the internal security service. I don’t have [all the] information, I’m not sure what kind of conversation they’re having but I certainly feel that it’s no longer just Bashar’s decision in terms of how to deal with the protests.

Do you think it will come to an intervention?

It’s a good question, I believe that intervention would be a very difficult prospect because of Syria’s position in the middle east, it’s relationship with Iran, it’s relationship with Lebanon and of course the negotiations that need to occur between Israel and Syria to have a sustainable peace between those two countries. Intervention of the kind we see in Libya; I don’t know if that’s possible or not and I’m not sure it would be in anyone’s interest to do that. I think the international community would prefer the Syrians to do this themselves. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both made statements saying that they condemn the killing, [...] that the Syrian government should allow for protest to occur and that significant reforms need to occur. The issue of reform has interestingly enough been echoed by the prime minister of Turkey and Turkey does have a good relationship with Syrian government so that was significant [but] I don’t know if anyone’s going be willing to intervene in the way that we’ve seen so far in Libya.

In the greater Middle East, what does it mean for the future structure of the region that Arab Spring is sweeping through former authoritarian states?

I think it’s clear that autocratic rule in the Middle East failed in numerous ways and in places like Syria, for the longest time they would use Israel as a foil to say ‘we have these issues and these problems internally but we have this greater enemy of Israel that’s always there so we need to put aside our wants and wished domestically to deal with the threat of Israel’. But I think, at a certain point, that sort of discussion loses weight and domestically speaking, especially in places like Syria, there’s so many other concerns, so many other issues that need to be addressed and it’s all just coming out. I think it’s the same thing in Egypt and Tunisia and in Yemen that there’s a certain amount of corruption, there’s a lot of people – they work day and night and barely get by and that combined with the kind of repressive tactics these autocrats use to stay in power, I think it’s just too much.  Tunisia was very symbolic in the sense that they showed the rest of the Arab world ‘this is possible, you can do this, if we can do this you can do this’. And I think, for many people that was very striking and I think, all over the Middle East and North Africa [people] really want reform and change and I think it’s a good thing. I’m really excited that this is a movement that’s come from within, it’s not external, these are movements being done by people there and it’s from them and I think, because it is from them that, I think there’s hope, definitely hope.

Hear the full interview on our iTunes channel soon.

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Farid al-Ghadry, President of the Reform Party of Syria, the opposition party which is based in United States, visited Italy and participated to a international meeting to discuss the situation is Syria and in the Middle-East area.

Ghadry met the Italian President of Chamber of Deputies Gianfranco Fini in occasion of a press conference, organized by the Vice President of the Foreign Affairs Commission Fiamma Nirenstein, in which the Reform Party President was the main guest.

He asked Italy to cut its diplomatic relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but to keep the relations with Syria. “Europe should vote for a humanitarian resolution in support of Syrian people,” he said. “We have to stop atrocities and violence against women, children and men tortured by Assad’s forces.”

“The regime is not able to survive to this revolution, we have just to speed up the fall. For this reason we don’t want external military intervention in the country. We ask Europe to go on pressing on Assad’s regime in order to create the conditions for a military coup d’état within the country, which could free Syria”, added the reformist leader.

He asserts that “The fall of the regime will be the beginning of a new season for the relations with Israeli, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, but especially could push also for a change in Iran,” referring to the so-called “domino effect”.

Italy expressed its support to Syria and its commitment for the Syrian cause and its democratic aspirations. Ghadry, sincerely moved by the Italian support and solidarity, thanked Italy and the politicians who welcomed him and organized the conference, in which many crucial points about the Syrian repression and the situation in many of the Middle-Eastern countries were discussed.

Farid al-Ghadry currently lives in United States where he emigrated in 1964 with his parents, but he was born in Aleppo, Syria. His Syrian citizenship was revoked by President Assad in 2007 after visiting Israel’s Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He founded the Reform Party of Syria in US, gathering Syrians who are living in America and other countries.

Syrian government doesn’t allow the formation of opposition parties, and doesn’t recognize the Reform Party as representative of Syrians. Political opponents as Ghadry are obliged to choose exile.

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“Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child’s prayer to dear, kind God! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones!”

The Brothers Karamazov

Waking up to a brand new day, to this flawed yet protected world of mine, I check the street I live in. Every single house is standing still, since there are no bombs falling through sky. People are outside, rushing somewhere, getting lost in daily life. Nobody puts a gun against someones head, against my head; my head is still at its right place, still hasn’t abandoned me yet. The “bell jar” that surrounds me is still there, being this transparent border between me and the rest of the world. Being completely safe and sound, I am all set, to get myself into trouble. I still hold the freedom of being open to this world where I reside, with all my possibilites, while somewhere, somebody is living in an extreme vulnerability, in complete chaos, where serenity doesn’t drop by. I encounter the Other’s trouble through a screen everyday, since this is what I intent, what i ask for: to get myself into trouble.

AJEnglish tweets on June 1st at 8.04 a.m: “Tortured and killed: Hamza al-Khateeb, age 13 – death in custody sparks further furious protests in Syria”. I follow the tweet till the end, and read the coverage. Hamza dissapears during a protest in Syria on 29th of April, and been held under Syrian custody until 24th of May, until returned dead to his family as just a body, that holds the marks of a horrible torture, reports Al Jazeera: “Hamza’s eyes were swollen and black and there were identical bullet wounds where he had apparently been shot through both arms, the bullets tearing a hole in his sides and lodging in his belly. On Hamza’s chest was a deep, dark burn mark. His neck was broken and his penis cut off.”

The famous nausea seizures me, real slow, making sure that I cannot get away with it. I have to go till the end, I shall take the burden on my own shoulders, so I dare to watch the censured video of the marks of the torture of Hamza’s violated body. Trying to collect the ghosts of this 13 year old’s existence, I curse to this nonsense, how on earth is it possible for the rest of us to move on?

Not being able “to die his own death”, his possibilities were taken away from him in hideousness. Hamza’s story drags me to Rilke, in whom I seek  shelter, yet not comfort:

“God everything is presented ready-made. One comes along, one finds a life all prepared, one only has to put it on. One wants to leave or is forced to; no strain:

Voilà votre mort, monseiur (Here is your death, sir)”

Hamza became the symbol of the Syrian uprising:

https://www.facebook.com/hamza.alshaheed?sk=wall

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As more reports of protestors being shot dead in Syria are coming in, so are international calls for the Syrian government to back down or stop their violent crackdown on demonstrators. It is easy to get caught in the political tailspin as the global community holds its breath while observing the so-called Arab Spring. However, for the Syrian people the facts are on the ground, where government troops show little restraint as they attempt to exert the will of the regime.

I met Nizar, not his real name, by chance in the capital of Germany. He had left his home in Syria about a month ago and agreed to speak to me about his country and his thoughts on the conflict.

“I’m in love with my country,” he told me. “I love everything about it – the people, the food, the trees, the ground, the buildings, the stones, everything.”

“What I love about my people is that we’re so hospitable – when you come into our home, we offer you a place to stay, a bed to sleep in and food to eat, lots of food! Eat, eat, eat. We would get on your nerves with offering food because we are afraid you’re too shy to ask!” He told me he misses his country, but continues to have faith in the people “Syrians are such hard workers, they always find a way.”

Nizar is from a Christian, middle-class background. His parents run a restaurant and are both educated. Nizar himself is a student.

During our conversation, I gathered a few important traits of the Syrian society. First of all, communication systems in the country are limited, and internet censorship has been in place for years. Users are constantly monitored, while websites such as Facebook and youtube have only recently been allowed. Nizar tells me that the ban on Facebook didn’t prevent people from using it through proxy, but that the government felt no urgency to crack down on the proxies. Why, I wondered?

“People only use Facebook for fun,” he answered and continued to tell me that it is generally uncommon to speak about politics – unheard of in public. The fear that the wrong words could end you up in prison deters that form of conversations. Despite this, he tells me that people still keep themselves up-to-date about the world, and that most are well-educated in society and politics.

When we spoke about the regime, Nizar explained to me that the system in Syria is innately corrupt. “Not like South America because there’s a high level of security [...] but the Syrian people have fallen into a pattern that says solving problems is easier done with money.” He is not shy to blame Syrians for letting it come to this. “If you are an important person, and the people around you don’t take advantage of knowing you in this position,  then they are considered naive and bound to fall behind.”

Meanwhile, Nizar loves his country for its inclusiveness and social community, but he has also seen the ugly side of so social of a society. He and his family have been through a difficult ordeal which proves that the injustice of the regime can get to anyone. He gave me a very personal account of how the regime affected his life which, for the sake of his family, will not be published. He told me that the sense of community in Syria could sometimes become too much for him, and that people were quick to pass judgement and delve in rumors because “everyone knows everyone’s business.”

I asked him about his emotions towards Bashar al-Assad and the regime, but he was quick to correct me, “Bashar and the regime are two very different things.” In his and many fellow Syrian’s view, Bashar was never a man of the military but forced into his position after the unexpected death of his brother. Nizar explains that his emotions are based in a gut-feeling because society has taught him that Bashar as a person is humble and not dangerous. When he came to power, he came with a lot of hope that he could improve the country.

The problem is the regime. The majority of the Syrian society is Sunni, while its rulers are from the minority Alawite sect of Shiite Islam. Nizar described the rulers of his country as stubborn people, very strict, who have forged their power on fear and social unity. It is, however, also the perfect soil for corruption and injustice.

As we began talking about the current situation he told me “today, many Syrians are frustrated.” Why, he asked me. “Security.”

Although the nation lived under a strict and corrupt system, security was always first priority. “The security forces are very powerful, yes, and they can interfere with your life in a second, true, but they kept my society safe.” He had an interesting interpretation of the present situation. “If I had to choose between a liberal society or security in my country, I would choose to be safe.” He elaborated on his conclusion saying that minorities in Syria fear that, like Egypt, the introduction of ‘majority rules’ would grant full power to a religious segment, which could potentially turn the country into an Islamic state. Nizar’s worry is that failure to separate religion and society, like the regime did, could end up alienating him and others of the Christian minority.

Briefly, we spoke about his irritation with the presence of American politics in the region. He noted that he had nothing against Americans, or any other communities of people, but that he was annoyed with the idea of “America’s Freedom Packages” – as was satirically coined by the American comedian John Stewart. “If the revolutionary movement in Syria turn to support from the West and succeeds, it would be like stabbing their country in the back.” He believes millions of Syrians will reject these freedom packages. “Our society is different, you can’t expect our traditions to suddenly coexist with western ideas let alone change overnight.” He sees the solution as a much longer process: “Syria needs to change by itself, and it will take education.”

I finally asked him about the developments of the protests. “I am so sorry for the violence in my country, no matter what war is being fought, I never wished this for us.” Still, he doesn’t see it ending before the goal is reached. “The problem is that there is no real opposition to the regime, and it’s scary to follow the developments. I want change in my society, but I don’t know who I should support. The religions? The capitalists? who? I believe people would calm down if the old crooks were to be judged under the law. I think an independent law system could bring freedom.”

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A voice rises from the web to tell what is going on in Syria, a country where it has been two months since the uprising started.

Amina Abdullah is the 34 years old blogger who became the symbol of Syrian revolution. She is half American, on her mother’s side, and half Syrian, on her father’s side, and she spent her life between US and Syria, where she currently lives. But above all she is lesbian and dissident.

Her blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus, seems to be very successful thanks to her accounts on protests and regime’s repression and heavy crack-down against civilians protesters. Her posts, written in English, tell her life experiences about homosexuality, politics and the current situation in Syria.

“An out Syrian lesbian’s thoughts on life, the universe and so on…” is the way Amina describes her blog. In a interview to Katherine Marsh, a correspondent of Guardian in Damascus, she said: “Blogging is, for me, a way of being fearless,” and she added “I believe that if I can be ‘out’ in so many ways, others can take my example and join the movement.”

When she started blogging she did not assume her blog could have become so popular. “My own day dream has been to encourage other women in Syria to be more upfront. I didn’t realistically expect much!” she said. But some weeks ago her post My Father, the hero, where she tells the episode when her father faced down two agents who came to arrest her on the charge of being a Salafist – an Islamic extremist – and a foreign agent, called the attention of many people, making it become very popular. “MY DAD had just defeated them! Not with weapons but with words … and they had left … I hugged him and kissed him; I literally owe him my life now.” This post describes a new of the regime’s repression, the dissidents’ mass arrests.

Currently she is hiding to escape from arrest, while the security services are keeping on searching for her, and she blogs whenever she can. “I don’t want to go to prison, though I am not scared of it. I believe I can do more for Syria free inside Syria than as a martyr” she said.

However in Syria homosexuality is illegal Amina decided to come out of the closet. Amina’s coming out is both sexual and political. “It’s tough being a lesbian in Syria, but it’s certainly easier to be a sexual than a political dissident.”

Her blog represents a freedom act, she could release herself through the web overcoming her fears and disclosing her ideas and her strength as a lesbian and as a political opponent. She is fighting a double war as she wrote “there’s a cyber-war on as well as one on the streets. They have hackers working busily to bring down hostile websites (I know of at least one friendly newssite where I might have drawn their attention; oddly, it’s now blocked in this country). They are hacking facebook and other social media. And they are all over every site spewing forth regime propaganda.”

Amina’s voice is one of the voices from Syria and it brings with it hopes and desires of all Syrians who want to be free and are struggling for it.

Hoping all the voices from Syria will be free soon I’d like to share this abstract from the post We are all Syria:“We need to free ourselves. If we want to protect our city or our sect or our clan, sometimes we must go forward on trust. And who better to defend those things than the collectivity of all of us? We love Syria; you love Syria. Let us come together and make this the greatest country in the greatest nation once again!”

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