LEBANON: Syrian dissidents who choose Beirut as their refuge say hiding in Lebanon is increasingly difficult and a risk to their lives as at least three Syrians opposing the Damascus regime have disappeared in recent months

Record ID: 276313

  • Title: LEBANON: Syrian dissidents who choose Beirut as their refuge say hiding in Lebanon is increasingly difficult and a risk to their lives as at least three Syrians opposing the Damascus regime have disappeared in recent months
  • Date: 1st December 2011
  • Summary: ALEY, BEIRUT (RECENT) (REUTERS) RAJA SHARAFEDDINE, DAUGHTER OF DISAPPEARED SYRIAN DISSIDENT SHIBIL AL-AISSAMI, LOOKING AT HIS PICTURES
  • Embargoed: 16th December 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon, Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA3JUWNWU6ISOB5V6Y7BPKLA77L
  • Story Text: For many Syrian activists who have fled across the border, Lebanon is an uneasy refuge. Some fear walking down main streets. Some go into hiding.
    "You always worry that you're still in reach of the hands of the Syrian regime," said one activist, whispering in the corner of a busy coffee shop in Beirut.
    "Being on the other side of the border doesn't mean much."
    Many activists who have fled to Lebanon blame a series of kidnappings and reported beatings on Syrian supporters here. Some suspect Damascus itself, struggling to quell an eight month revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's rule. Syria denies the accusations and it is impossible to verify them.
    Syria has a history of intervening in Lebanon, where it kept a force of up to 40,000 troops until 2005. Today its ally Hezbollah -- a Shi'ite political movement as well as a major guerrilla army -- and political partners hold the majority in Lebanon's government.
    Since the beginning of the protests, which Damascus blames on foreign-backed "terrorists," the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (LIDHR) says it has documented 13 kidnappings of Syrian activists in Lebanon.
    Human Rights Watch says it has only been able to document two high profile incidents, among a sea of rumours.
    One is the May abduction of 89-year old Shibil al-Aissami, a founder of Syria's ruling Baath party who became a dissident and went into exile decades ago.
    One witness said Aissami was dragged into a black SUV while taking a walk in his daughter's resort neighbourhood, perched in the mountains overlooking Beirut.
    ''It did not occur to us at first because my father had retired from politics and is an elderly man. Who would want him? And he does not have enemies. The problem is that he had no enemies. We kept hoping that the next day we would find him, that maybe he had an accident, we searched hospitals. And afterwards we started thinking that he was abducted and that it was the Syrian regime because he was an old Syrian dissident and they were afraid of him," daughter Raja Sharafeddine told Reuters in an interview.
    Sharafeddine said it took weeks to find out how her father disappeared. A local resident said he saw the kidnapping but had been too afraid to step forward earlier. A diplomatic source told her that Aissami was taken to Syria, but she still blames Lebanese security forces for reacting slowly.
    ''They did not take the matter seriously from the beginning. Either they knew what happened and they did not want to reveal it or there is some kind of collaboration or they were under political pressure from the Syrians and they couldn't do anything, I didn't really understand,'' she said.
    Another widely documented case was the kidnapping of three Syrian brothers, from the Jassim family. The Jassims were picked up by black SUVs after one brother was released from a brief detainment after passing out fliers for an anti-Assad rally.
    Local media in Lebanon cited leaked reports from the head of Internal Security Forces, Ashraf Rifi, telling a closed cabinet meeting that Lebanese security forces working at the Syrian embassy were responsible for the four kidnappings.
    A security source who declined to be named said the reports were accurate and the ISF was still investigating the incidents.
    Syrian activists say one of the Jassim brothers is already dead from torture in Syrian jail.
    Human Rights Watch could not confirm the death, but said Lebanon must do more to prevent and investigate kidnappings.
    Fateh Azzam, of the UN High Commissioner's office for Human Rights, says there is growing concern about the kidnappings as well as reports of landmines on the Syrian side of the border.
    ''There were reports of disappearances and maybe the abduction of some Syrian nationals, some of them are well-known like Aissami who is a former leader of the Baath Party. He is a man in his late eighties who was kidnapped outside his daughter's home. There are also reports that several Syrian Kurds have been kidnapped or threatened with kidnapping and this is very worrisome,'' said Azzam on the sidelines of a conference on freedom of speech in the Arab world held in Beirut.
    ''What worries us as well are the reports of landmines along the Syrian-Lebanese border which if true and there is a heavy planting of mines on the border, then it is going to be very dangerous because these mines do not distinguish between man or woman or child or refugee or Lebanese or Syrian.''
    Despite the risks, Lebanon itself remains an important haven: Its mountainous northern border regions, long used as smuggling routes for petrol and other contraband, are now exploited to sneak people and supplies across the border.
    Witnesses told Reuters that gunmen in three cars last week tried to abduct a Syrian worker in the border town of Arsal, but residents attacked the men and burned their cars.
    The man has since disappeared from Arsal. Neighbours say he went into hiding with Syrian relatives.
    Even Lebanon's capital Beirut, one of the Arab world's most open and vibrant cities, is not safe. The city has become a self-made prison for Syrian activists who say they have received death threats and are forced to stay under the radar in their apartments for most of their time.
    ''There are at least three people confirmed kidnapped. We have reports of six others but we couldn't confirm the reports. We are sure about the three people, Shibil al-Aissami in Aley and the Jassem brothers. There were also cases where Syrians who fled to Lebanon were handed back to the Syrian authorities in Bekaa. All this caused a lot of fear among the dissidents in Lebanon,'' said Mohamed Diab, a Syrian poet living in Lebanon.
    ''For example, the Syrian opposition here cannot organise a protest. There were several protests that were called for in secret through social-networking websites and by inviting only trusted media because others they might be a counter-protest by the pro-regime groups and maybe there will be violence. This happened in front of the Syrian embassy in Beirut and one of the activists, who was Lebanese, was beaten up so hard he suffered a broken hip,'' he said.
    At one protest in June, called for originally by Assad opponents, supporters of his regime attempted to clash with the protesters as Lebanese security forces struggled to keep the two sides apart. Since then, protests in support of or against Assad are held rarely in Beirut. Anti-Assad protests are the strongest in Tripoli, the city in the north with has a large Sunni community that is viewed as entirely sympathetic with the Syrian protesters' cause.
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