Syria Must Change to Avoid Regional Turmoil, Assad\u2019s Cousin Says<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Massoud A. Derhally – Mar 7, 2011<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should take steps to liberalize the country\u2019s political system and allow more freedom to prevent the regional turmoil spreading to Syria, his cousin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Assad should \u201cend the state of emergency, which would be a symbolic and tangible step,\u201d Ribal al-Assad, head of the London-based Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria, said in a March 4 telephone interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSecond, I would tell him to call on all political players to come to the table and discuss how to move forward and to form a national unity government,\u201d said Assad, 35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Libyan revolt that began in mid-February and threatens the rule of Muammar Qaddafi is the bloodiest in a wave of popular uprisings in the Middle East in the past two months that have toppled Tunisia\u2019s former leader, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syria must \u201callow all independent political parties who genuinely believe in democracy to be established,\u201d Assad said. \u201cThey have to release all political prisoners, allow peaceful freedom of expression and association, and end media and Internet censorship. Also, they must start processes to end state corruption. They have to do it, and they have to do it right away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Long Overdue\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sweeping changes in the Arab world are \u201clong overdue,\u201d said Assad, who was last in Syria in 1999. \u201cPeople in that region have been waiting for democracy and freedom a long time, and it was time for this change to happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are in the 21st century,\u201d Assad said. \u201cPeople cannot continue as is. You have satellite-television channels, mobile phones and the Internet. You cannot see how the world is advancing and accept to continue living under a dictatorship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syria has taken some measures to placate citizens. The government will keep electricity prices stable even as the costs of power generation increase, state-owned newspaper Al Baath reported on March 3, citing Minister of Electricity Ahmad Qusay Kayali. The Ministry of Economy and Trade ordered a reduction in profit margins on food items such as rice, sugar, vegetable oils, animal fats and corn, as part of a drive to cut retail prices, Thawra newspaper said on March 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Assad issued a decree on Jan. 16 almost doubling the heating allowance for state workers to 1,500 Syrian pounds ($32) a month, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported today. The measure will cost the state 15 billion Syrian pounds a year and will benefit about 2 million people, the agency said, citing Finance Minister Mohammad al-Hussein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beautiful Mosaic<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want a violent revolution,\u201d Assad said. \u201cSyria is a bit different from Egypt and Tunisia. We have Muslims, Christians, Jews. We have ethnic minorities such as Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Turkman and Circasians. It\u2019s a beautiful mosaic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About 200 people began a daily vigil on Jan. 29 outside the Egyptian embassy in Damascus and then moved to the Bab Touma neighborhood in the old city. Their numbers dwindled because of harassment and on Feb. 2, 15 to 20 people participating in the vigil were attacked by unidentified men, Suhair Atassi, a dissident who took part, said on Feb. 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized the Syrian authorities and called on the government to stop intimidating demonstrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indicators<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018\u2018Of course\u2019\u2019 change is coming to Syria, Assad said. \u2018\u2018You can see the regime is very scared, it\u2019s very worried. Since the revolution happened in Tunisia they have made many changes,\u2019\u2019 he said, referring to cash handouts by the regime, salary increases of government employees and cuts in the price of heating oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018\u2018These are indicators,\u2019\u2019 said Assad, who has had no contact with his cousin since 1994. \u2018\u2018Why didn\u2019t they take these steps before, why did they have to wait until now? This shows they are not immune to waves of change in the region.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Assad issued an amnesty for some crimes committed before today, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported, without giving further details.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Syria Must Change to Avoid Regional Turmoil, Assad\u2019s Cousin Says By Massoud A. Derhally – Mar 7, 2011 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should take steps to liberalize the country\u2019s political system and allow more freedom to prevent the regional turmoil spreading to Syria, his cousin said. Assad should \u201cend the state of emergency, which would […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7396,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7383\/revisions\/7396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}