The United States Institute of Peace Holds Panel Discussion Entitled “Resurrecting the Wall of Fear: The Human Rights Situation in Syria.”

The United States Institute of Peace held a panel discussion today entitled “Resurrecting the Wall of Fear: The Human Rights Situation in Syria.”

The last 3 months have seen a crackdown by the Syrian government targeting public intellectuals, civil society activists. It all began with a December meeting of the National Council of the Damascus Declaration, after which a wave of arrests saw a drastic limitation of civil liberties. Thirteen of the leaders of that coalition remain in prison and have been accused of subversion of Syrian security, among other charges. The U.S. has withdrawn its ambassador from Syria.

Such actions by the Syrian regime come as somewhat of a surprise in light of the recent Annapolis summit and the Arab League summit to be hosted by Syria in March.

Joe Stork, deputy director of Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch, expressed confusion as to why precisely this crackdown has come at this time. He cited Syria’s refusal to admit Human Rights Watch investigators into the country despite its record of fair treatment for Iraqi refugees within its borders. He stated that U.S. diplomatic relations with Syria have been unfortunately ignoring the human rights issue.

Mona Yacoubian, special adviser at the Muslim World Initiative of USIP, called for increased U.S. attention to this issue and made several policy recommendations for doing so. In her opinion these actions by the Syrian regime stem from both feelings of confidence that they may act with impunity and of vulnerability and paranoia, a trait inherent in all autocratic regimes. She stated that, to date, efforts at sanctioning have met with little success, and recommended lower level relations rather than relying on presidential summit meetings. To make real progress, she said, either isolation policy must be greatly increased on a multilateral scale, or a strategy of engagement must be pursued.

Talking Points: American Enterprise Institute event on bloggers in the Middle East

Speaking were:

Arash Sigarchi, an Iranian blogger who had been sentenced to 14 years in prison for espionage and insulting the country's leaders, speaking through an interpretter

Mohammed Ali, an Iraqi blogger (http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/)

Tony Badran, a Lebanese blogger (http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/)

Arash in his opening statement described how he was forced into blogging by the pervasive censorship of the media in Iran. Publishing anything critical of the government results in beatings, fines, and jail. When Arash began blogging, the government was largely unaware of the Internet, so he was free to publish whatever he wanted. In recent years, though, it has begun monitoring the Internet. Arash said that western funds to promote democracy in Iraq allows the government to brand bloggers and others as mouthpieces of the US, so a better form of aid would be to help people get Internet access. Responding to a question from Paul Wolfowitz about the reach of Voice of America and other media, Arash also said that access to western media is more limited than access to drugs. He also noted that Ahmadinejad is still quite popular, and the general people don't know about economic sanctions against Iran.

Ali, an Iraqi blogger, said that he had spoken with other bloggers, in both Iraq and Sudan, who had been inspired by him to begin blogging. Arab media outlets are heavily government funded, but blogging allows independent people to express themselves cheaply. Blogging can be difficult, though, because Internet access is scarce.

Tony Badran said that in Lebanon, where Internet access and access to western media are much more common, blogging presents other difficulties. Blogs are being used for propaganda and conspiracy theories by Syria, and it can be difficult to distinguish genuine citizen blogs from Syrian "info ops."