Latest News from Syria – 19 December 2013

– Western powers want Assad to stay
– Palestinian actor dies in Syrian regime prisons

WESTERN POWERS WANT ASSAD TO STAY

According to Reuters, Western powers have signalled to the Syrian opposition that the long-awaited Geneva 2 ‘peace talks’ next month “may not lead to the removal of President Bashar al-Assad” from power, justifying their shift in position by fears that, if Assad is allowed to go, “chaos and an Islamist militant takeover would ensue.”

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/17/uk-syria-crisis-assad-idUKBRE9BG18X20131217

COMMENT FROM THE EDITOR:
What more chaos can there be than whole cities being flattened by explosive barrels, hundreds of thousands dead and as many disappeared in prisons, millions displaced and so on and so forth. It all depends on your perspective!

COMMENT FROM NAAME SHAAM’S TEHRAN CORRESPONDENT:
Meanwhile, the Iranian government today announced that it will resume its negotiations with western powers in Geneva regarding the implementation of the nuclear agreement, a week after the government broke them off in anger at new US sanctions against 19 Iranian companies and individuals. Are the two events related?

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PALESTINIAN ACTOR DIES IN SYRIAN REGIME PRISONS

A much-loved Syrian-Palestinian actor has died under torture in one of the Syrian regime’s prisons. Hassan Hassan was one of a few Syrian-Palestinian activists to stay in the Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus, under a prolonged siege and bombardment, to document the regime’s crimes and help with humanitarian aid work. He was arrested at a regime check point in autumn – after he was recognised from the short films he was making, many critical of the regime and the situation in the camp – and taken to an unknown place. Yesterday his family was contacted by the authorities and told Hassan had died, presumably from torture.

His friends have posted a video on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTuvxINIwAA) from before the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2013, in which Hassan says:

“I don’t want to leave the camp, I wish I could stay here. I wish conditions were better and I could carry on living here. If I could do just one play a year, and show it just in the camp, no problem. I’d be content and happy. I don’t want to be famous, I don’t want to become anything. I just want to stay in the place and be able to work in theatre, and be normal. Not more than normal. In that scenario I’d be really happy.”

For more about Hassan’s life, work and activism, see this blog:
https://www.oximity.com/article/On-Hassan-Hassan-or-the-most-beautiful-1#.UrCZbqaPE-4.facebook

See also this award-winning 2013 documentary in which he features:

And here are a couple of examples of his late works (from inside the Yarmouk Camp in Damascus under siege):

COMMENT FROM THE EDITOR:
To those who are still defending the Syrian regime under the pretext, or illusion, that it is the “last resistance block” for Palestinian rights and that it is fighting against Zionist and Western imperialism, please open your eyes and have some respect for Palestinian activists like Hassan who sacrificed their lives for the Syrian revolution, not to mention the tens of thousands of Syrian-Palestinians killed and displaced by this same regime. As Syrian-Palestinians have been chanting on anti-regime demonstrations for the past two years, “One, one, one – Syrians and Palestinians are one!”

Report from NAAME SHAAM’S correspondent in Damascus, Syria

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