European Forum

Syrian draft law allowing new political parties adopted

On 24 July under massive pressure to reform or quit, the Syrian government adopted a draft law allowing for the creation of new political parties alongside the long-ruling Baath party. The draft law, which still needs parliamentary approval, would allow for the establishment of any political party that is not based on religious or tribal lines, or discriminates due to ethnicity, gender or race. The multiparty bill follows other concessions Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has made as part of his efforts to quell more than four months of protests against his government.

The monopoly
The Baath party banned opposition groups in Syria after the military coup in 1963 that brought it to power. A key demand is the ending of this political monopoly and therefore the abolishment of Article 8 in the Syrian constitution, which states that the Baath party is the only leader of the state and society. Assad, who inherited power in 2000 after the death of his father, President Hafez Assad, has made a series of overtures to try to ease the growing social uprising. He lifted the decades-old emergency laws that gave the government a free hand to arrest people without charge, granted Syrian nationality to thousands of Kurds, a long-ostracised minority, and issued several pardons.

Yet the concessions failed to sap the momentum of the protest movement, which has dismissed them as symbolic as the government has shown no signs of letting up in its efforts to crush the uprising. On 24 July, the same day as the draft law was adopted, Syrian troops stormed a north-western village and made sweeping arrests in the region and in the capital Damascus. Security forces rounded up hundreds of civilians in Damascus and made arrests near Homs and in the town of Sarakeb in the north-western province of Idlib near the Turkish border, activists said. Human rights groups say that about 1,400 civilians and 350 security forces personnel have died in the four months of protest.

Governor sacked
Also on 24 July did President Assad sack the governor of the flashpoint province of Deir az-Zor, two days after massive protests demanding his ousting were held in the oil-producing region. Also was Samir Othman al-Sheikh, an officer in the intelligence apparatus asked to replace Hussein Arnos. Arnos, a civilian, has now been asked to govern the small province of Qunaitera west of Damascus, on the border with the Golan Heights. The move is being seen as an attempt to tighten the government's grip on Deir az-Zor. About half a million people took to the streets across Deir az-Zor on 22 July, in one of the biggest demonstrations in recent weeks, activists and human rights campaigners said. Deir az-Zor, which produces most of Syria's oil, is among the poorest of the country's 13 provinces, and a water crisis in the past six years has crippled agricultural production. Since the uprising against his regime began in March, Assad has also sacked the governors of the southern province of Deraa, cradle of the uprising, and the provinces of Homs and Hama, which have witnessed huge demonstrations.

Sources, BBC, AlJazeera, Photo: Flickr Pan_Armenian