Syrian Blogger Sentenced to Three Years in Jail

blind biker writes "The AP reports (via the Herald Tribune) of Tarek Bayassi, a 24-year old Syrian blogger sentenced to three years in jail for 'undermining the prestige of the state and weakening national morale.' The original sentence was six years but it was commuted on appeal. Apparently, this isn't an isolated case in Syria."

Guys, we're talking about SYRIA here

Why does this surprise anybody?

Since 1963 the country [wikipedia.org] has been governed by the Baath Party; the head of state since 1970 has been a member of the Assad family. Syria's current president is Bashar al-Assad, son of Hafez al-Assad, who held office from 1970 until his death in 2000.[1]

...Upon assuming power, Hafez al-Assad moved quickly to create an organizational infrastructure for his government and to consolidate control.

Since when have any citizens of any dictatorship ever had freedom of speech? If he were Chinese his family would be paying for a bullet.

Actually I was surprised

he didn't just disappear or have an appointment with a bullet.

perhaps the fact what he did was so easily available saved his life.

I do have to wonder how some people here actually thinks the Syrian leadership is any shape or form actually embarrassed by th

Re:Guys, we're talking about SYRIA here

It sounds unlikely, but Bashar isn't really to blame here. He was never meant to be president. His brother was groomed for the role, but died in a car accident. When Hafez died, Bashar was working as an eye doctor in London. He was rushed back to inherit a job he never wanted. After he took control he quickly put in place measures to liberalise the country, loosening restriction on freedom of speech among others. However, this didn't last long. it soon became clear that he was not the one with the power. The real leaders were the senior official of the Baath Party who had been put in place by his father. They clamped down and reversed his reforms.

While he is the one whose face is on posters on the side of every building and on the wall of every shop and home, he's not in charge. There's obviously a lot of brainwashing going on, but he really does seem to be very popular in Syria. A lot of this is bread and circuses: people generally have a good quality of life, so tend to ignore the politics.

In any case, Syria is a beautiful country, with incredibly friendly people. It's sad to see stories like this, but there are signs of improvement in the regime. Even the fact that he had a trial and had his sentence reduced is a progress. It's unlikely he would have had that under Hafez. Despite the recent furore over the alleged nuclear reactor, there seems to be signs of progress towards peace with Israel. Only a couple of weeks ago, Turkey's president Erdogan was brokering talks about a possibly treaty. Time will tell.

Re:Guys, we're talking about SYRIA here

"In any case, Syria is a beautiful country, with incredibly friendly people." I testify to that. Everybody in my mosque is very nice, but Syrians stand out even on that background.

Re:Guys, we're talking about SYRIA here

It could be worse. They could have cameras in the streets and use them to fine people who run red lights. Imagine that!

Re:Guys, we're talking about SYRIA here

This book was "Previously banned" by the admission of the author. Right along with Lolita and others. It is banned no more. Don't forget about the Sedition Act when John Adams was President. Christ, it's not like anyone is claming that the US is perfect.

Find a freedom that is PRESENTLY being violated in the US to bitch about. It's not hard to do.

Re:Guys, we're talking about SYRIA here

You need to understand that you cannot rule countries like Syria in the same way as US...If you don't have strong government there they will descend into anarchy and civil war.

I'm old enough to remember when people said that about Latin America and East Asia, that only a sufficiently dictatorial rightist or leftist (depending on the speaker's own prejudices) could run a stable government.

In fact, it turns out that Mexicans, Koreans, Brazilians and Singaporeans are quite as capable of living in democracies as Western Europeans are.

Re:

Singapore?

you are using Singapore, the country where they can fine you for not flushing a toilet in a public restroom, where possession of marijuana is punishable by death as an argument FOR people being able to live like we do in the Western world?

Re:Guys, we're talking about SYRIA here

The USA comes to mind, oh, if only that civil war hadn't happened, I might have a slave of my own today.... darn... :)

A little off-topic, but the South was already moving towards ending slavery and most historians I've spoken with think it probably would have made the move on it's own within a few more decades (it wasn't just something in the water above the Mason-Dixon line that made people anti-slavery - it was a general changing world view on the subject).

The US Civil War was about secession (or rather, the right of a state to secede from the union), not directly slavery. The core of it was that Southern states tended to view them selves as belonging more to their State (so one was a Virginian or a North Carolinian before they were American). The Federal government to them was supposed to be a loose organization more analogous to the United Nations of today. It's existence was solely to provide a unified military defense and to facilitate interstate commerce. As such the southern states wanted the right to decide their own policies (of which slavery was indeed a major hot issue of the day). They also viewed it as their right to decline membership and go their separate ways if they felt so justified. The war was largely based on a disagreement in the interpretation of that relationship between the US and the individual states.

Slavery wasn't abolished until a year into the war and then ONLY in the Southern states (though at the time Lincoln didn't have control over them, so it was a bit toothless). Slavery in the North was still quite legal after the Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery didn't end there until the 13th amendment passed after the war ended, 3 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Indeed, General Ulysses S. Grant had owned a slave (though he set him free in 1859), and his wife owned four. Many other Union generals owned slaves too. Naturally slave ownership among the Southern leadership was quite common. On the other hand the VAST majority of the soldiers doing the actual fighting on either side did not own slaves at all (afterall, slaves cost a lot of money, and wars are often fought by the poor). In the eyes of the common soldier they were simply fighting to either keep their country from tearing apart or for their independence against an oppressive government, depending on which side they were on.

Not that I think slavery is good or anything (IMHO it's one of the greatest evils man can commit), but it just irks me sometimes when the American Civil War gets simplified into a no slavery vs slavery or good vs evil situation, when in reality it was far more complex.

Re:Guys, we're talking about SYRIA here

You need to understand that you cannot rule countries like Syria in the same way as US. It's also pretty true about, for example, Russia. If you don't have strong government there they will descend into anarchy and civil war...Whole middle east is like that.

Grotesque racism and ignorance is modded Interesting?

somebody should explain the court

Well ... somebody should probably explain the court that they did much more than the blogger, to undermine the prestige of the state (and to show the national morale as lacking), by simply convicting him.

Re:somebody should explain the court

This is actually very insightful.

The point of free speech is more than just to allow anyone to say their bit. It includes the fact that reasoned and fair debate will do more to undermine any truly dangerous people than any system of censorship could.

There are many examples of this, but the one that springs to mind is BNP (British National Party - right wing skinheads aka Neo Nazis in the UK) being invited to open debates versus simply being sidelined. Every time they are invited to express themselves and engage the mainstream media, they make complete fools of themselves, proving themselves to be nothing more than racist skinheads. Banning them would fan the flames - allowing them free (even if racist and offensive) speech does far more to kill their support.

Suppression of an ideology almost always does more to drive people towards it than free discussion.

Re:

You and that court have a different appreciation of the term "Prestige": you think that a state has prestige when it respects human rights and allows freedom of speech. They think that prestige means that everybody is so scared of the state that no one dar

Re:

The key here is that they undermined the prestige of the state with other states, not with thier own people.

The Goal of this court is to keep INTERNAL morale high. They don't care what we think of them. They are trying to keep thier message consistent with

Everything old is new again

Lese majesty [wikipedia.org] has been a crime since Roman times. Remember, it's only treason if you lose (the revolution).

I'm not any error Cham train!

Better story about Tariq Bayassi here:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.almarfaa.net%2F%3Fp%3D117 [google.com]

His "Free Tariq" site:
http://209.85.171.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://ahmadblogs.net/freetariq [209.85.171.104]

The problem I have with all of this is that we simply don't have very much evidence to go on as spectators. If someone was being brought up on trumped up charges, it would make a difference to me whether he was Fred Phelps or Fre Rogers. Justice should be blind, but sometimes taking the blindfold off and snuffing out truly vile people for the sake of the rest of us.

There isn't enough information at all about Tariq that is easily available, so we don't know if he was just bad mouthing Assad or if he was organizing assassination attempts on the President. Without context, I guess we should just cry for Free (as in Speech) Speech.

Doublespeak?

There's obviously a couple of homonyms at work here... "prestige of the state" and "weakening national morale". Because here in the UK at least, our perception of what makes us prestigious is that we ARE free to comment on the state, and what weakens our national morale as much as anything is when the state is seen to exercise excessive power over the freedom of the population.

The President of Syria has worked very hard at creating an image of being a humble, quietly-spoken, Western-educated ex-ophthalmologist who's had power lavished upon him almost inadvertently. Well it's back to the drawing board for the Damascus spin-doctors now then!

Weakening national morale

Well shit, if that were a crime here about half the population, myself included, would be guilty.
We're gonna fail! (Whatever you are thinking, just assume I mean that.)

prestige?

I was not aware that Syria had prestige.

He had a trial, at least.

At least they gave him a trial.

People are being freed from Guantamo after 6 years without ever even having being charged with anything. Can you imagine the torture of not even knowing when you are going to get out?

Re:He had a trial, at least.

It may be a gratuitous slam on the United States but its a truthful one. The behaviour of the United Status regard Guantanamo has been a blight on its reputation, one that has soured its image across the world. Its a measure of how badly the image has been soured that its not possible to have a discussion of rights without the subject being raised. This might not be people's taste but its the reality of the situation.

What is the answer? I guess that if you are holding yourselves up as being the defender of the free world and calling 'evil' to account you have to make sure that you don't commit evil yourselves.

I realise that not all US citizens supported this state of affairs but enough of them voted to elect the George W Bush and again to re-elect him. Whilst you might not agree with the policies conducted they are being carried out in your name by your democratically elected government. As such you have to take the heat that goes with it. Fortunately you are free to protest against this and not be locked up.

Re:He had a trial, at least.

It may be a gratuitous slam on the United States but its a truthful one. The behaviour of the United Status regard Guantanamo has been a blight on its reputation, one that has soured its image across the world.

So the fact that it is truthful is a justification to bring it up in every discussion? It may be truthful, but it is completely, utterly, irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I highly doubt that Guantanamo has "soured" our image in any place which was not already anti-American. America has been a hated country for decades in most regions of the world. The blame that America is taking for virtually every problem in the world is nothing new. Let me know when a US citizen is placed in jail or killed for anything like a blog. In case you haven't noticed Bush is bashed every day on slashdot and even ACs have their IP logged so if Bush had the power and desire to take them down he certainly could. So the comparison is disingenuous.

Re:

Or Guantanamo bay where things like legal constraints seem optional.

Free Trade is the Answer

If its the former, no duh, we already knew that. If its the latter, are you trying to get us to want to do something about it? and if so, what do you propose? that we bring them democracy at the barrel of our depleted uranium guns?

Free trade with Syria is the answer. The more open a nation is to trade, the more open that nation is to communications with the outside world. Sanctions are a form of war, remember.

Of all ironies is that Bush, by invading Iraq, threw away the lessons of his own party. Republicans, for better or for worse, have been staunch free traders since Reagan and it is that commitment to free trade around the globe that has caused nations to adopt more open societies, not American bombers. Have a strong defense, but for god's sake, don't start any wars and try and sell people stuff. It's a simple game plan, and Republicans were so good at it. But, after Afghanistan they just got too cocky and thought we could knock off Iraq. I almost want to go back in time and throttle William Kristol, and say "no, no, no, it is not time to have a benevolent American Empire!"

But, we just have to get back to the original game plan. Don't lecture the likes of Syria. Sell them stuff.

While we are at it, get rid of all of this USA PATRIOT nonsense.

huh?

Just because Syria has the power to do this does not make it right.