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Politics in the Syrian Arab Republic takes place in the framework of a presidential republic with nominal multiparty representation in People's Council under the Ba'athist led National Progressive Front but with other opposition parties suppressed. The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and the al-Assad family have dominated the country's politics since a 1970 coup d'état.
Bashar Hafez al-Assad is a Syrian politician who has served as the 19th president of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the Secretary-General of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba'athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafez al-Assad, whose presidency between 1971 to 2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a dynastic dictatorship tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat, who are loyal to the Assad family.
The Muslim Brotherhood of Syria is a Syrian branch of the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization. Its objective is the transformation of Syria into an Islamic state governed by Sharia law through a gradual legal and political process.
The Damascus Spring was a period of intense political and social debate in Syria which started after the death of President Hafiz al-Asad in June 2000 and continued to some degree until autumn 2001, when most of the activities associated with it were suppressed by the government. It started with the Statement of 99 and the establishing of the Committees of Civil Society, then the Statement of 1000 was issued carrying the signature of 1000 Syrian intellectuals in 2001.
Michel Kilo was a Syrian Christian writer and human rights activist, who has been called "one of Syria's leading opposition thinkers."
International reactions to the Syrian civil war ranged from support for the government to calls for the government to dissolve. The Arab League, United Nations and Western governments in 2011 quickly condemned the Syrian government's response to the protests which later evolved into the Syrian civil war as overly heavy-handed and violent. Many Middle Eastern governments initially expressed support for the government and its "security measures", but as the death toll mounted, especially in Hama, they switched to a more balanced approach, criticizing violence from both government and protesters. Russia and China vetoed two attempts at United Nations Security Council sanctions against the Syrian government.
The Syrian National Council, sometimes known as the Syrian National Transitional Council or the National Council of Syria, is a Syrian opposition coalition, based in Istanbul, Turkey, formed in August 2011 during the Syrian civil uprising against the government of Bashar al-Assad.
Burhan Ghalioun is a French-Syrian professor of sociology at the Université de Paris III Sorbonne University in Paris, and the first chairman of the Syrian opposition Transitional National Council (SNC). He was named chairman on 29 August 2011. His chairmanship was criticized for his perceived closeness to the Muslim Brotherhood, his early reluctance to arm opposition forces, and what opponents called the autocratic nature of his leadership. On 17 May 2012, feeling he had become an increasingly divisive figure for the council, Ghalioun resigned.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian uprising from September to December 2011. This period saw the uprising take on many of the characteristics of a civil war, according to several outside observers, including the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, as armed elements became better organized and began carrying out successful attacks in retaliation for the ongoing crackdown by the Syrian government on demonstrators and defectors.
The National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC), or National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCB), is a Syrian bloc chaired by Hassan Abdel Azim consisting of 13 left-wing political parties and "independent political and youth activists". It has been defined by Reuters as the internal opposition's main umbrella group. The NCC initially had several Kurdish political parties as members, but all except for the Democratic Union Party left in October 2011 to join the Kurdish National Council. Some opposition activists have accused the NCC of being a "front organization" for Bashar al-Assad's government and some of its members of being ex-government insiders.
The Syrian National Council (SNC) is recognised by 7 UN members, the Republic of Kosovo and the European Union as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people in the midst of the Syrian civil war, with three of those being permanent members of the Security Council. One country, Libya, recognises the SNC as the legitimate government of Syria.
The Syrian opposition is the political structure represented by the Syrian National Coalition and associated Syrian anti-Assad groups with certain territorial control as an alternative Syrian government.
This article details responses from Syrian government officials to widespread civil unrest which began in early 2011 and eventually unraveled into nationwide civil war.
Bassma Kodmani was a Syrian academic who was spokesperson of the Syrian National Council. She was the executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, a network of independent Arab research and policy institutes working to promote democracy in the Arab world.
Abdulbaset Sieda is a Kurdish-Syrian academic and politician. He is the former President of the Syrian National Council (SNC), succeeding Burhan Ghalioun in June 2012. He has written a number of books on the Kurds in Syria and his academic work specializes in ancient civilizations.
George Sabra is a member of the Syrian Democratic People's Party. He was elected president of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in Syria, on 9 November 2012 and later was acting president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces from 22 April – 6 July 2013. He resigned from the National Coalition on 25 April 2018. Sabra is a Christian.
The Syrian Revolution, also known as the Syrian Revolution of Dignity was the early stage of protests – with subsequent violent reaction by the Syrian Arab Republic – lasting from March to 28 July 2011, as part of the wider Arab Spring in the Arab world. The uprising, which demanded democratic reforms, evolved from initially minor protests, beginning as early as January 2011 and transformed into massive protests in March. The uprising was marked by massive anti-government opposition demonstrations against the Ba'athist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, meeting with police and military violence, massive arrests and a brutal crackdown, resulting in thousands of deaths and tens of thousands wounded.
The Syrian coup d'état of 1961 was an uprising by disgruntled Syrian Army officers on 28 September 1961, that resulted in the break-up of the United Arab Republic and the restoration of an independent Syrian Republic.
The Conference for Change in Syria, or Antalya Opposition Conference, was a three-day conference of representatives of the Syrian opposition held from 31 May until 3 June 2011 in Antalya, Turkey. Since the early days of the Syrian civil uprising, it was the second of its kind, following the Istanbul Meeting for Syria that had taken place on 26 April 2011.
Kurdistan Region–Syria relations are bilateral relations between Kurdistan Region and Syria. Kurdistan Region and Syria are neighbors, but Kurdistan Region only borders PYD-held Rojava since the Syrian civil war. Kurdistan Region and Syria share two border-crossings, and 208,574 Syrian refugees lived in Kurdistan Region in February 2021.
References
- ↑ "Syrian opposition unveils council names". BBC News. 16 September 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
- ↑ Lepeska, David (2 July 2011). "Fighting the Syrian Regime From a Chicago Office". The New York Times.
