Democracy Movement Spreads to Syria

By Emad Mekay

"CAIRO, Mar 27, 2011 (IPS) - The revolution contagion sweeping across the Arab countries has spread to Syria leading to rare protests challenging the grip of the ruling Baath Party on the country. The regime was quick to describe the turmoil as a foreign-inspired plot aimed at punishing the country for its support of groups opposed to U.S. and Israeli policies in the region.....

The regime used another tactic to discredit the protests saying that more demonstrations could lead the country to fall into the hands of conservative Islamists, who would then limit freedoms. Syria's 22.5 million people are mostly Sunni Muslims but are ruled by the minority Alawites, who follow a branch of Shiite Islam. The regime's arguments were not convincing for the opposition. "Trying to scare us by invoking chaos or civil war, using the threat of the Islamists taking over and arguing that our people are not yet qualified to practice democracy, are all futile and hopeless arguments," said Riad Al-Turk, a long time opposition leader in Syria who had been jailed several times before. "The Syrian people have come of age and the authorities should realise this fact before it is too late." The protesters have dubbed their demonstrations "rallies for dignity and freedom" refuting the regime's argument that they are motivated by foreign powers who want to end Syria's backing of resistance groups. If anything, Syria has many of the conditions that caused the revolutions in Tunisia and in Egypt -- two other Arab countries that saw long-serving leaders unseated by popular revolt. In both countries, foreign policies played almost no role in fueling the uprisings. Mass protests were moved by anger at corruption, poor economic and social conditions and the regime's brutality. "Our people can no longer bear living under dictatorship, corruption, repression, injustice, discrimination and poverty. The era of submission is over and it is your turn to go now, Doctor," said Free Syrian, a Syrian blogger writing for the website of Aljazeera news channel referring to President Assad who is an ophthalmologist by profession.....

"In Syria today, the spirit of freedom is flying over the country," Al-Turk said in his column on FreeSyria.org. "The wind of changes that blew across the Arab World over the past three months had to eventually come to knock at the doors of the big prison called Syria." "