Syrian crackdown and opposition

Syrian security forces routinely torture people detained during the country’s year-old uprising, Amnesty charged in a report released on Wednesday: here.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Frustrated trio quit Syrian opposition council

Wednesday 14 March 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

Three prominent Syrian dissidents announced on Wednesday that they have quit the country‘s main opposition group.

The resignations of Kamal al-Labwani and Catherine al-Talli and Haitham al-Maleh from the Syrian National Council dealt another blow to the opposition, which has been hobbled by disorganisation and infighting.

Mr al-Labwani accused the leadership of the SNC of controlling the body’s work while sidelining most of its 270 members.

“There is no council, it’s an illusion,” said Mr Labwani, who worked for years against the Ba’athist-led National Progressive Front government before being jailed in 2005.

He joined the council soon after being released in November.

He accused council chief Burhan Ghalioun and a few others of running the organisation autocratically.

“They are trying to build an autocratic rule inside the council,” he said. “There is no group work. Everyone is working by himself and the whole council has not met once.”

He said that Ms Talli has also quit and added that he expected many more to quit soon to pressure the council leadership.

Mr Labwani called for an international conference in Turkey to make it more democratic.

Mr Maleh has accused the group of being out of touch and not consulting those long opposed to the government.

Prominent council members have publicly disagreed on fundamental issues such as whether the rebellion should be peaceful or resort to arms.

Activists inside Syria often accuse the body, mostly composed of Syrian exiles in Europe and elsewhere, of being out of touch.

The report by Human Rights Watch cites eye-witness accounts of kidnappings, torture, forced confessions and summary executions of security personnel and civilians by the Syrian opposition: here.

President Barack Obama pledged Sunday to deliver “non-lethal” supplies to Western-backed anti-government insurgents in Syria: here.

Syrian activists to rebels: Give us our revolution back. Many of the activists who began the uprising in Syria more than a year ago feel their peaceful push for change has been hijacked by the rebel Free Syrian Army: here.