This is a fascinating video of a huge protest in Sydney on 5 August 2012 and we have put up a video of it with a number of interesting interviews from marchers, with comments from what they think of the Bashar Assad Government to how they don't like the Australian Greens policy on this matter and believe that we are risking World War Three by backing intervention in Syria. There is also some background on how Syria has been the long-term host one of the largest refugee populations in the world, which makes you wonder why it doesn't receive more support from Greens and Refugee activists. It must seem ironic that some candobetter.net EcoMalthusians are more inclined to give Syria that recognition! Please let us know if you have views on the democratic status of the Syrian government; we find it hard to judge. All comments and greetings welcome.
See also: Australians for Syria.
The video of this march also contains commentaries and is the product and published by Truth News with Reporter Hereward Fenton, who interviewed Naja (a Syrian Australian), Tim Anderson, and John Burgess (of the 911 truth movement). Thanks for your work at Truth News.
"On 5 August 2012 a rally was held in Sydney in support of the Syrian government by members of the Syrian community and Australians. Some four thousand people gathered peacefully at The Sydney Town Hall to express solidarity about the tragedy in Syria. A number of speakers, from various sections of the community, addressed the audience concerning the external forces that have invaded Syria and are fighting the [...][1]government. The people then marched peacefully to The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs in the Sydney city area, where more speakers addressed the people. Appreciation for Russia and China voting against the US proposed UN-NATO involvement were expressed. The meeting then peacefully dispersed." (Source: Commentary under video on Truth News)
Naja, Syrian-Australian protester speaks
Naja, a Syrian-Australian protester said,
"I would just like to say one thing to the Australian Government. The Syrian president - 75% of the people elected him and only the Syrian people can impeach him. I just want to say another thing, that Barack Obama ought to go back home. Hands off Syria! We just need to raise our voice and we're sticking with the President! ... He is a very popular leader, he's a doctor and he studied in England. He doesn't kill his people. We've got militants in Syria. They're terrorists. They're not free Syrian army. They're killing people. I've got my family back home. They're kidnapping people. After they kill them, they amputate their body parts and they send them home to - bodies without heads, without arms - and we've got to put a stop to it. We want him to stay in power. That's my message. "
Tim Anderson spoke powerfully on behalf of the Syrian Government
"People in this country are very ignorant of what's going on in Syria. That's understandable. That's not a crime in itself, but, what is not acceptable is the unethical use of this ignorance. All of those people from Hilary Clinton through the media through all sorts of silly people in this country - those people saying Assad must go - they have no ethical basis to make that sort of claim. They haven't understood that it's the foundation of the post colonial era, it's the foundation of human rights that a people have a right to self-determination and the Syrian Government is only for the Syrian people and no-one else. We see the result across the border in Iraq. What a tragedy in Iraq. What a great tragedy in Iraq! But we can't allow that to happen in your country. So I'm here just to say as a non-Syrian Australian, at least some of us here are in solidarity with you today."
Tim Anderson, author of Take Two, The Criminal Justice System revisited has the remarkable history of having been completely exonerated after erroneous conviction for the Hilton Bombing in 1978 (Fraser Government). The real perpetrators have never been found. Evidence that Australian security forces may have been responsible [in a false flag attack] led to the New South Wales parliament unanimously calling for an inquiry in 1991[1] and 1995.[2] The Government of Australia vetoed any inquiry. You can read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Hilton_bombing or here in an pdf file at http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/pdf/a000803.pdf with an interview of Anderson published in July 1991 that contains some very interesting comments on Asio and Special Branch activities in NSW leading up to this time.
Tony Backhouse on Australian Greens policy on Libya and Syria
Tony was also marching. Interviewed by Truth News, he said that he had originally joined the Greens because of their stance on Iraq and policy of peace and non-violence, which is a platform of the NSW branch constitution, but he has just resigned from them over their support for UN Nato intervention in Syria. He stated, "I see this as akin to starting World War Three in Syria. I find it totally hypocritical and that's why I've left."
Tony said that, to him, it seems this position was taken initially by Bob Brown and then by Christine Milne (NSW) and Adam Bandt (in Victoria) and that perhaps the Federal Greens are falling into line with the European Greens. It was what had been going on in Aleppo that got him to make his mind up. He added that he nearly left the Greens over their position on Libya especially after Gaddafi's house was bombed and his granddaughter and other members of Gaddafi's family were killed. He noticed in the week of this Australians for Syria protest in Sydney that Leon Panetta [23rd and current United States Secretary of Defense] had actually threatened Assad's family: "And I thought, this is just ridiculous. I can't support this. I mean, my party is supporting a military intervention basically in Syria against their own constitution!"
Commentary on Democracy, Refugees and the Australian Greens - Please contribute if you can
The beginning of this article was taken from Truth News and we left out these words, [1] "elected democratic." Whilst we support non-intervention in Syria and basically support the current government, we disagree that the Bashar Asaad Government was elected democratically, since there was no opposition. Maybe we are wrong. Please educate us. You can read more about the Syrian government here. Nonetheless we agree that Bashar seems to be a very popular president and Syria did recently hold a very well supported referendum in which Syrians voted yes for to have multiparty government recently, to remove the constitutional definition of the B'aath Party as the ruling party of Syria, and to limit the time a person could remain president to 14 years.
Bashar Asaad himself seems to be pretty enlightened in a terrible region where colonial intervention has from the 19th century consistently preferred dictators and continuously reduced the self-organising ability of peoples. Bashar Asaad's father was a more severe dictator but, still, his people were provided for, in an area where there are far worse, far more brutal dictatorships. To illustrate the unbalanced basis of foreign intervention encouraging civil war in Syria, the Western powers currently include Saudi Arabia as their ally against the Syrian Government. This is not just ironic, but it is shocking, because the Saudi Government is incontestably depraved, yet able to get away literally with murder, mutilation, suppression of subjects and shocking, institutionalised, bizarre ill-treatment and disenfranchisement - enslavement really - of women. It is truly unacceptable that the United States and NATO hob-nob with this monarchy. There has to be a better and more globally cooperative way to power down with oil than this.
With regard to the Syrian Government, a Syrian-based Catholic nun recently said,
I am not Syrian, but I have been living in Syria for today almost 20 years. Syria was under a kind of totalitarian regime but not in only a way a repressive way but it was that all the decision would be taken by few persons. But there was security, there was food, education and people were living - of course not in ... kind that they would say their thinking in a loud voice.
Now, this totalitarianism is not good, and it's obsolete, but if the armed insurrection is implementing another totalitarianism which is maybe worse because there is blood, they can behead you, they can cut your - in last week in our village they cut the fingers of a so-called 'collaborator', who is not ev[en] from the village. Then they behead him, they cut him in piece and they left him in the street, where even children would see it.
So this kinds of acts of atrocities cannot help people to really believe that what is happening is a strive for freedom.
The majority of the Syrian population, I say, is taken as hostage, and sometimes as a tool, as [?enemy] by these armed, insurrection armed...armed insurrection people. They come and they take place in the civilian areas.
Australians, particularly Greens and Refugee Action supporters, logically should be speaking out in support of Syria which has taken in and managed to deal fairly with an extraordinary number of refugees and asylum seekers from this tumultuous region where, bizarrely, the Greens have been supporting NATO backing for civil war.
According to the 2012 UNHCR country operations profile on the Syrian Arab Republic,
The Syrian Arab Republic hosts one of the largest urban refugee and asylum-seeker populations in the world. The Government and people of the Syrian Arab Republic continue to maintain a generous open door policy that allows Iraqi refugees to seek asylum and gain access to basic services such as education and primary health care. Moreover, the normalization of relations between Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic in early 2011 has led to a simplification of the visa process for Iraqis wishing to enter the Syrian Arab Republic.
UNHCR, with the support of the international community and in active partnership with the Syrian authorities, was able to maintain the protection space granted to refugees and asylum-seekers. With the assistance of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, it has continued to provide them with essential services and assistance. Source: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e486a76.html
If nothing else, the counter-intuitive stance on Syria of the Greens is yet another indication that the people leading the Greens these days are career politicians with ideas and principles a very long way from the original participants and founders of Green Party's in Australia. As to where Bob Brown stands or ever stood... some of us do wonder. For those among us who care about our country and realise that overpopulation will quickly deprive us of ecological conditions and human rights, it is baffling that the Greens, who have so let us down in matters of ecology and population policy, do not stand up for Syria and its generosity to refugees.
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researchpaperstar (not verified)
Fri, 2012-08-24 18:46
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J'ai trouvé votre message
J'ai trouvé votre message d'une telle information instructive et utile sur ce poste, merci pour le partage de la poste. Editorial comment: This comment thanks us for informing the poster about Syria. This post also contains an advertisement with a link to a site where students are asked to pay for help in research.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2012-08-25 09:37
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Refugee problem accumulating faster than we find solution
The Government and people of the Syrian Arab Republic has maintained a generous open door policy that allowed Iraqi refugees to seek asylum. The tables have turned, and the number of refugees fleeing civil war in Syria has surged to over 200,000, the UN said. The UNHCR says the total reflects an increase of 30,000 in the past week of refugees from Syria going to Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. Turkey has warned it soon may not be able to cope with the torrents of people now fleeing across the Syrian border and that some refugees may have to remain in Syria itself.
Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil says the West is looking for an excuse for military intervention in his country, a move he says would be impossible.
Jamil said during a visit to Moscow Tuesday that sending Western forces into Syria would lead to a wider war in the Middle East. He dismissed U.S. President Barack Obama's warning about what would happen if Syria were to use chemical weapons, calling it election propaganda.
Syria Says West Looking for Excuse to Send in Troops at http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/08/21/syria-says-west-looking-for-excuse-to-send-in-troops/
Gatilov, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister, added that, there is growing evidence that the West is delivering massive amounts of weapons to Syrian armed gangs via third-party states.
Syrian forces clash with foreign-backed insurgents in Aleppo at http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/20/257247/syria-forces-insurgents-clash-in-aleppo
The number of boat people who reached Australia in the whole of last year was just half the number who crossed from Somalia to Yemen in a single month last August, and in a single day between Syria and Lebanon last month.
Islands of the damned at http://www.peninsulaweekly.com.au/news/world/world/general/islands-of-the-damned/2651479.aspx?storypage=0
António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees:
" I'm sorry that when one looks at today's world, the first challenge that is clear is that multiplication of new crises that we are witnessing around the world. At the beginning of 2011, we had Cote d'Ivoire; we had Libya; we had Yemen; we had Syria; we had the Horn of Africa, Somalia, with the compounded effect of conflict and the drought; then we had Sudan/South Sudan; Syria becoming much more serious in 2012; and Mali, the most recent one".
"To make it more complicated, there is a shrinking humanitarian space. There is more and more difficulty to accede some of the people that we need to support in different parts of the world...."
National Teleconference: The State of the World’s Refugees: From Indifference to Solidarity at http://www.cfr.org/africa/national-teleconference-state-worlds-refugees-indifference-solidarity/p28444
The refugee problem is accumulating faster than we find solutions - and there are no new frontiers to conquer or settle in our already over-crowded planet. The attack on Syria, aided by foreign forces, will open an already sore wound of human displacement due to conflict.
Bill Sanders (not verified)
Tue, 2012-08-28 16:47
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What is the real colour of “Green?"!!!!
Geoffrey Taylor
Sat, 2012-09-29 21:26
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Syrian Girl's interview of murdered Iranian journalist
From the Syrian Girl Partisan's YouTube channel, 27 Sep 2012
Press TV Journalist Maya Nasser was martyred yesterday when FSA Mercenary Snipers while he was covering a bombing in the Syrian capital of Damascus . He was a patriot and a brave hero that risked his life for the truth. Three weeks before his death I interviewed him on whether or not there was a civil war in Syria. I waited to put it out because i wanted to edit it, and now it's too late for him to see it. I had hoped to interview him again, 'inshallah' he said, 'god willing'.
From VoltaireNet: PressTV journalist
Maya Nasser murdered in cold blood
27 September 2012
Our friend and colleague, 33 year-old Maya Nasser, Press TV's correspondent in Syria, was shot in the neck by a gunman on Wednesday, 26 September 2012, while covering the double attack against the Syrian Ministry of Defence. He was murdered by terrorists as they were trying to take advantage of the bedlam to get into the burning building.
During his lifetime, Nasser Maya had never experienced anything except a war-torn Middle East. He was an exemplary journalist. He was also a sensitive and generous man who had dedicated his life to the Resistance and was always prepared for the exteme sacrifice.
Another colleague, Al-Alam bureau chief Hossein Morteza was wounded during the same incident.
Syria has been under attack for the past 18 months by mercenaries, funded by Qatar and overseen by NATO. They are intent on dismantling the secular institutions, undermining the defense system of a country partly occupied since 1967, and imposing a religious dictatorship in which Christian and Muslim minorities would not have their place. The conflict has already claimed more than 30,000 Syrian victims (civilian and military) and more than 6000 deaths among the foreign jihadists.
During the Battle of Damascus (mid-July), the Contras had mounted an exceptionally violent operation, shelling for three solid days the studios shared by Press TV and Al-Alam.
See also: Young Syrian patriot fights corporate media lies against her homeland of 10 May 2010.
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