Free Michel Kilo Now - Enough Already

ها هي الشمس ترسل بخيوطها الذهبية مرة أخرى….ها هي أشعتها تبدد سحب الظلام مؤذنة ببزوغ فجر جديد…نحن الآن نملك الحرية الكاملة بالتعبير عن آرائنا و أفكارنا، فنحن نستطيع التعبير بكل الوسائل: عن طريق الكلام أو الكتابة  أو تنظيم المظاهرات و المسيرات السلمية أو عقد الاجتماعات و ما إلى ذلك من أشكال الاحتجاج، فلا أحد يقمعنا 

Message From HAMSA: 

Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance (HAMSA) has re-launched the “Dream Deferred” Essay Contest on Civil Rights in the Middle East. Anyone under the age of 26 can enter, and finalists can win up to $2,000 in cash prizes! 

The contest challenges young Americans and young Middle Easterners to express constructive ideas for individual rights in the world’s least-free region.

Judges for the essay contest include Azar Nafisi (author of the best-seller Reading Lolita in Tehran), Shafeeq Ghabra (past President of American University in Kuwait) and Gloria Steinem (founder of Ms. Magazine ), as well as noted Middle Eastern bloggers Ammar Abdulhamid of Syria and Mahmoud Al-Yousif from Bahrain.

We hope to awaken American and Middle Eastern youth to the reform efforts of brave individuals in the region. Ultimately, we aim to inspire young people to support these initiatives and to contribute their own ideas for civil rights programs.

The deadline for the contest is January 31, 2007 and we hope you consider submitting an essay. If you have any questions, please send an email to dream@hamsaweb.com.

Information in Arabic

I have no comment on this amazing article which is quite disturbing and depressing, except to remind people of jokes in the 80s that you need to get permission from the government before you fart or go to the bathroom. “Yalatif, bidna fat khibz ktir 7atta nsir bashar(humans)”. Enjoy :

The gallerist and photographer Issa Touma is facing a military tribunal in his native Syria. As Die Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Matthias Kolb reports, the charges against him are unclear. Touma, who regularly organizes art events, such as the annual Women’s Art Festival, just launched the photographic festival Meeting the Middle East at his gallery Le Pont (The Bridge) in Aleppo, the second-largest city in the country. The festival, which runs until the end of November, features more than fourteen hundred works from seventy international artists, including Jean-François Pirson, Vance Jacobs, Johannes Hepp, Pedros Temizian, and Nadim Bou Habib.

As Kolb notes, Touma did not cooperate with the country’s secret service and the reigning Baath Party by showing them the selected artworks for approval before the festival opening. “That’s gutsy in a country where foreign cultural institutions must get the approval of the Syrian Ministry of Culture for every project,” writes Kolb, who adds that works by Jewish artists, images of nude women, and video works are all against the ministry’s official policy. In September, Touma suddenly learned that he was only allowed to receive one package per country every six months—a rule that left some shipments stranded. An informant then told Touma that Syria’s military court was preparing a case against him. By October, the prime minister’s secret service had issued a decree forbidding all Syrian politicians from communicating with the gallerist-artist.

Touma’s current dilemma can be traced in part to an event in 2005, when the regional government closed down his gallery—a state intervention that a court later judged to be “arbitrary and not legally founded.” Despite this ruling, it seems that the military tribunal is claiming that Touma reopened the gallery illegally. “It’s impossible to find out what he’s accused of,” writes Kolb. “But the state bureaucrats simply cannot understand how someone without state approval can operate independently.” While Touma was allowed to proceed with the festival, “it’s impossible to predict what will happen when it closes.”

Addon: This is another article in the same day that goes in the same trend of chocking art and creativity in Syria. It discusses how international movie producer Omar Amiralay was banned from leaving Syria to go to France to participate in the Syrian Cinema festival in Marseilles.

there is danger in accepting fully
all that fate decrees.
as tho no slight of hand nor
change of heart would grant release.
as tho no argument suffice,
nor logic intervene
to mitigate the consequence of
circumstances seen.
there is danger in surrender unto
any listing wind.
not knowing whence it came or when
it might return again.
as free as any leaf in flight
aloft an autumn breeze.
dancing in abandon at the whim
of destiny.what boundless freedom dauntless trust and
innocense provide.
as tho life’s ups and downs are just
a rollercoaster ride.
no fear nor dread of life or death
to bind the mind or heart.
the danger in surrender is the freedom
it imparts.

moon batchelder

Freedom
 
Freedom from war.
Freedom from death.
Freedom from pain.Freedom from political ideology.
Freedom from religious hypocricy.
Freedom from racial, ethnic, or class intolerance.
Freedom from material or moral indulgence or imbalance
Just what true freedom ought to be.

Shane Markie Freedom Is Never Free
They tell me
‘Freedom is never free.’
I know that-
More than most realize.
Freedom cost us more
Than we should have to give.
Freedom cost us blood.
It cost us the lives
Of our fathers,
Our sons,
Our brothers.
But while freedom is never free,
Remember-
It has been bought at great price,
And so is a thing of great value.
We must defend it,
From those who would take it away.
The defense of our freedoms
Will cost us-
More than we wish to pay.
But we must pay, to defend,
For if we try to make freedom free,
We forget-
True freedom is never free.

Alf Mabrouk Mr Michel Kilo for your freedom and Alf Hamdellah 3ala Salame. Your ordeal is hopefully over. It must be a great joy for your family, your friends, your supporter and all the people who disapproved of your unjust arrest. This is indeed fantastic news for Syria and all Syrians. It is a new national day of FREEDOM. This is a celebration for all Syrians, Lebanese, Arabs, Kurds, Muslims, Christians, European and International people who asked hard for your immediate release. So many Syrian and Arab writers and intellectuals wrote great articles to show you support and sympathy.

I am so ecstatic and still can’t believe the news!!! Thank you FT for alerting me as soon as I logged in (also Thank you Rime and SB) and then I saw it in some internet articles. I even wrote a huge article just now but unfortunately it did not get saved. It is ok. It is Michel Kilo and Syria’s day. I saw so many Syrians really mad and upset by your arrest which was so unnecessary. Initially some great blogs called for your release such as Ammar’s, Levantine Dreamhouse, Rime’s Mosaics even Syria Comment. I could not stay passive and silent anymore. I was outraged and incensed by this huge blow to Free Speech. So many other friends and other blogs showed so much compassion and helped keep me going even when it is was a very bad and hopeless situation. Indeed I met some great people who care so much about Syria and its well being away from oppression.

Last month, so many Syrian and Arab blogs joined the campaign for free speech and releasing the political prisoners. Everyone cares, everyone tried to do it even though they took some risks. International organizations were trying so hard to lobby for the release. If any thing positive emerged from this whole mess, was that it showed the government that Syrians refuse to be silenced; that the era of oppression is over. Syrians yearn for better days politically and are willing to stand up and make sacrifices. I was very proud of so many Syrians who refused this tragedy. They felt that Michel Kilo could be anyone of us.

I, on behalf of the Syrian people, would like to thank Dr Salim Al Hoss because I think he played a major role of his release since he met Assad Monday, just few days ago. No he did not read my letter, haha. That shows that Lebanese of the highest calibers want ot see a better Syria: Syria with more free speech and no political prisoners.

The joy of course is not completed; we still have Anwar Al Bunni who needs to be released. Bogus and ridiculous charges against the signatories of the Lebanon-Syria declaration who called for better healthier Syrian Lebanese relations need to be dropped (there are still trials). We can’t be happy until the due release of Kamal Labwani and Aref Dalilah and all the other political prisoners. No Kurds or Students need to be arbitrarily arrested any more to impose false security or scare the political society away. These days are over, political freedoms and free speech in Syria needs to be allowed. If the government and their supporters think that they are so popular then why they are playing with the opposition nerves??? What are they afraid of?

No I am not going to stop and I will change the blog’s name with your help soon. The journey as my great friend Abu Kareem said is very long. But today is Michel Kilo’s day. Congratulation again and I can’t imagine your happiness in finding yourself at home and out of this nightmare. Hopefully this sour page has been turned for good.

——

News Releases, I think that he is 66 rather than 57 which appears on many sources.
English
International Herald Tribune
Middle East online
BBC

Arabic
Elaph
FreeSyria
AFP:

القضاء السوري يقرر اخلاء سبيل المعارض ميشال كيلو

19. تشرين الأول 2006 - 17:02 

دمشق (اف ب)- صرح المحامي حسن عبد العظيم الناطق باسم التجمع الوطني الديموقراطي (ائتلاف معارض) لوكالة فرانس برس اليوم الخميس ان السلطات السورية قررت اخلاء سبيل المعارض ميشال كيلو المعتقل منذ ايار/مايو الماضي.

وقال عبد العظيم ان “القاضية حليمة حيدر اصدرت قرارا باطلاق سراح كيلو ودفعت كفالة مقدارها الف ليرة (حوالى عشرين دولارا)”. واعتبر ان “اطلاق سراح كيلو بعد نحو خمسة اشهر يعني ان الافعال المنسوبة اليه جنحية الوصف وليست جنائية”.

من جهته اوضح عمار قربي رئيس المنظمة الوطنية لحقوق الانسان في سوريا لوكالة فرنس برس ان “القاضية وافقت على اخلاء سبيل ميشال كيلو مقابل كفالة مالية رمزية على ان تستمر محاكمته طليقا”.

ورأى قربي ان اطلاق سراح كيلو “كان حقا مشروعا وقانونيا له” مطالبا “باخلاء سبيل جميع معتقلي الرأي والضمير وعلى رأسهم الدكتور كمال اللبواني والمحامي انور البني والكاتب علي الشهابي”.

وطالب ايضا ب”الافراج عن جميع السجناء السياسيين وعلى رأسهم عالم الاقتصاد الدكتور عارف دليلة”.

وكان كيلو (46 عاما) اعتقل في ايار/مايو مع تسعة مثقفين وناشطين في مجال حقوق الانسان بعد توقيع بيان يدعو الى “تصحيح جذري للعلاقات السورية اللبنانية”.

ووقع هذا البيان الذي وزع في 11 ايار/مايو في بيروت حوالى 300 من المثقفين السوريين واللبنانيين.

وافرج عن الناشطين الثمانية فيما بقي كيلو والمحامي انور البني الناشط في مجال الدفاع عن حقوق الانسان في السجن.