by Sharif Abdel Kouddous
The Nation
"Haitham al-Maleh, an 81-year-old Syrian human rights lawyer, has spent most of his life struggling against autocracy in Syria and the last forty years battling the iron-fisted rule of Bashar al-Assad and his father before him, Hafez al-Assad.
“I will live to see the Assad regime fall, just as sure as we are sitting here together,” Maleh said in an interview on a recent visit to Cairo. Tall, with a thick, white goatee, large aquiline nose and an easy confidence, Maleh speaks in a lively manner that belies his years.
His life story is one of relentless resistance to government repression in Syria.
Maleh was first arrested in 1951, at the age of 20, and held for three weeks, after he spoke out as a young lawyer calling for an independent judiciary. Undeterred, he continued to practice law, eventually rising to become a judge. In 1966, he was forced off the bench by the ruling Baath party for his vocal opposition to emergency laws that had had been put in place three years earlier, which effectively suspended most constitutional protections for citizens....
In July, the government lifted the travel ban on Maleh and several other prominent opposition figures. “I don’t know why,” Maleh says. “There is no ‘why’ in Syria. You cannot ask.” He immediately left the country, reuniting with his son for the first time in seven years. They traveled to Istanbul to attend an opposition gathering and embarked on a tour of Western Europe and the Middle East to garner support for the protesters in Syria and call on governments to condemn the Assad regime and sever diplomatic relations.
Official estimates put the death toll in Syria at more than 2,200 over the past five and a half months. Maleh believes the figures are much higher. “More than 3,000 people have been killed or disappeared and more that 25,000 have been arrested,” Maleh says.
Despite the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown and the personal threats to his life, Maleh plans to return to Syria in a few weeks to continue his life’s work. “We will be the winner,” he says with a smile. “This regime is going to hell.”"
The Nation
"Haitham al-Maleh, an 81-year-old Syrian human rights lawyer, has spent most of his life struggling against autocracy in Syria and the last forty years battling the iron-fisted rule of Bashar al-Assad and his father before him, Hafez al-Assad.
“I will live to see the Assad regime fall, just as sure as we are sitting here together,” Maleh said in an interview on a recent visit to Cairo. Tall, with a thick, white goatee, large aquiline nose and an easy confidence, Maleh speaks in a lively manner that belies his years.
His life story is one of relentless resistance to government repression in Syria.
Maleh was first arrested in 1951, at the age of 20, and held for three weeks, after he spoke out as a young lawyer calling for an independent judiciary. Undeterred, he continued to practice law, eventually rising to become a judge. In 1966, he was forced off the bench by the ruling Baath party for his vocal opposition to emergency laws that had had been put in place three years earlier, which effectively suspended most constitutional protections for citizens....
In July, the government lifted the travel ban on Maleh and several other prominent opposition figures. “I don’t know why,” Maleh says. “There is no ‘why’ in Syria. You cannot ask.” He immediately left the country, reuniting with his son for the first time in seven years. They traveled to Istanbul to attend an opposition gathering and embarked on a tour of Western Europe and the Middle East to garner support for the protesters in Syria and call on governments to condemn the Assad regime and sever diplomatic relations.
Official estimates put the death toll in Syria at more than 2,200 over the past five and a half months. Maleh believes the figures are much higher. “More than 3,000 people have been killed or disappeared and more that 25,000 have been arrested,” Maleh says.
Despite the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown and the personal threats to his life, Maleh plans to return to Syria in a few weeks to continue his life’s work. “We will be the winner,” he says with a smile. “This regime is going to hell.”"
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