November 3, 2005

Are we supposed to be grateful for the sudden "rectification" of issues that shouldn't have happened in the first place? I'm sure the 190 Syrian prisoners of conscience whose release was announced on Wednesday are relieved to be out of jail, but it's hard to accept the explanation for their release, just as it was to accept the explanation (if any) for their incarceration. Apparently, it has absolutely nothing to do with internal and external pressures, no Siree. The timing is purely coincidental.

SANA, with its usual clarity, explained that this amnesty was "in line with the comprehensive reform policy that aims at strengthening national cohesion which constitutes the basis of our society texture and serves our national interests." This is reform? And this is what SANA says comes "within a series of similar steps that Syria has taken so far in recent years with aim of strengthening the internal front and consolidating the national dialogue"? What steps? Wouldn't national dialogue be more consolidated if people speaking their minds weren't thrown into jail?

In a journalistic scoop which SANA shares with us, there are apparently "more steps and measures to come in that connection on the basis that the homeland embraces all." At the risk of raining on their parade, this sounds an awful lot like the promise that a big step would be taken at the Baath Party Congress.

The three Syrians whose illegal arrest and imprisonment continues to symbolize the regime's response to the Damascus Spring - Riad Seif, Mamoun Homsi and Aref Dalila - remain in jail, along with many others.

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