Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won’t step down and will instead “face the storm,” raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country’s civil war.

In the Syrian capital Damascus, meanwhile, a powerful explosion went off in the Ruken al-Deen neighborhood, killing three people and wounding five, Syrian state TV reported. It said the blast was caused by a car bomb and that experts are dismantling other explosives in the area.

On the diplomatic front, Syria’s political opposition has said any transition talks must lead to Assad’s ouster. However, the Syrian leader told the Argentine newspaper Clarin in comments published Saturday that he won’t leave before elections are held in his country, and suggested he might seek another term.

Assad’s comments were the first about his political future since the U.S. and Russia agreed earlier this month to try to bring the Syrian regime and the opposition to an international conference for talks aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Such a gathering is envisioned for next month, but no date has been set, and neither the Assad regime nor the Syrian National Coalition, the main Western-backed coalition group, has made a firm commitment to attend.

The Syrian president’s remarks highlighted the difficulties the U.S. and Russia face in getting the two sides to agree on the terms of negotiations.

More than 70,000 people have been killed and several million displaced since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war.

Assad has dismissed those trying to topple him as foreign-backed terrorists. Many in the political opposition say the Syrian president and his inner circle cannot be expected to negotiate in good faith after they brutally suppressed peaceful protests.

In his comments Saturday, Assad appeared to play down the importance of any international conference, saying Syria’s future will be determined by its people and dismissing any possible role the U.S. and others might play.

“We have said from the very beginning that any decision about reforms in Syria or any other political action are local decisions and it is not permissible that the U.S. or any other state interfere in them,” he said.

Assad compared himself to the skipper of a ship riding Syria’s turbulent seas, saying “the country is in a crisis and when a ship faces a storm, the captain does not flee.”

“The first thing he does is face the storm and guide the ship back to safety,” Assad was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “I am not someone who flees from my responsibilities.”

An audio clip from the interview was posted on the Clarin website, with his Arabic comments dubbed into Spanish and translated into English by The Associated Press.

(Source / 18.05.2013)

BEIRUT (AFP) — Documents and torture equipment found in Syrian security buildings in rebel-held Raqa show detainees were tortured when President Bashar Assad’s regime held sway over the city, Human Rights Watch said on Friday.

A team of researchers working for HRW toured Raqa in northern Syria in April, a month after the city fell into rebel hands, and found the incriminating evidence, the New York-based watchdog said in a statement.

“The documents, prison cells, interrogation rooms, and torture devices we saw in the government’s security facilities are consistent with the torture former detainees have described to us since the beginning of the uprising in Syria,” said HRW deputy Middle East director Nadim Houry.

Among the implements the watchdog said it found is a cross-shaped contraption known as “bsat al-reeh” (flying carpet) which “former detainees have said has been used to immobilize and severely stretch or bend limbs”.

Torturers used the device to “tie a detainee down to a flat board, sometimes in the shape of a cross, so that he is helpless to defend himself,” HRW said, citing former detainees.

“In some cases, former detainees said guards stretched or pulled their limbs or folded the board in half so that their face touched their legs, causing pain and further immobilizing them.”

HRW researcher Lama Fakih told AFP that although the watchdog has interviewed countless former detainees during the two-year conflict, “being inside the facility makes it so much more real.”

“We know people are still being detained and subjected to these practices,” she said.

One former detainee told HRW he and his brother were tortured “in turns”.

“They started torturing him with electricity for three, four hours, and then they threw him in a solitary cell … They wanted me to tell them who used to go out to demonstrate with me… and they would make me hear my brother’s screams,” said Ahmed, 24.

Abdullah Khalil, who now heads the opposition civilian council in Raqa, also testified to HRW.

The long-time human rights activist was detained by the security forces on May 1, 2011, less than two months into the uprising.

He was transferred to 17 different security branches while in detention, HRW said.

HRW last July mapped what it called Syria’s “torture archipelago”, where tens of thousands of detainees are believed to be held and mistreated.

It urged opposition groups now controlling Raqa to safeguard the evidence.

“Destruction or mishandling of these documents and material will weaken the possibility of bringing to justice those responsible for serious crimes,” HRW said.

(Source / 17.05.2013)

Syrian children walk past tents at the Zaatri refugee camp in Jordan, on Sept. 11, 2012.

GENEVA (AFP) — More than 1.5 million Syrians have fled their conflict-ravaged homeland, the UN’s refugee agency said Friday, warning that the real figure could be even higher as the tally only reflected those who register with aid groups.

Dan McNorton, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters that close to 250,000 Syrians were being registered each month.

“Refugees tell us the increased fighting and changing of control of towns and villages, in particular in conflict areas, results in more and more civilians deciding to leave,” McNorton said.

“Over the past four months we have seen a rapid deterioration when compared to the previous 20 months of this conflict,” he added.

McNorton underlined that the actual number of refugees was likely to be even higher than 1.5 million.

“This is due to concerns that some Syrians have regarding registration,” he said, explaining that rumors circulating among exiles about the supposed security risks of signing up for refugee status put some people off.

He said aid agencies were working to encourage waverers to register in order to be able to receive official help, even as UNHCR struggles to keep up with the rising numbers and needs.

“The increasingly widening gap between the needs and resources available is a growing challenge,” he said.

“UNHCR continues to respond to the emergency needs of those in desperate need inside Syria and neighboring countries,” he added.

Syrians have surged out of their country since March 2011, when a crackdown on protests against the regime of President Bashar Assad heralded the start of an armed rebellion.

Numbers ballooned as the conflict morphed into an increasingly sectarian civil war, and the total topped a million in March this year.

Most have fled to neighboring Jordan, where close to 474,000 have been registered by UNHCR or are waiting registration, and to Lebanon, with over 470,000.

Some 347,000 are in Turkey, over 147,000 in Iraq and close to 67,000 in Egypt, according to UNHCR’s latest data.

In addition to the refugees, the United Nations has said that more than 4.25 million Syrians are displaced within their homeland.

That means that, all told, over a quarter of Syria’s pre-war population of 22.5 million have been forced to quit their homes since the conflict began.

The death toll has surpassed 90,000, according to the UN.

(Source / 17.05.2013)

The Syrian authorities must drop all charges against prominent peace activist Mazen Darwish and two of his colleagues, 19 human rights organizations said on Friday.

Darwish, Hussein Gharir and Hani Zaitani “are facing trial on terrorism charges for their peaceful activism”, said the groups that include Human Rights Watch (HRW), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Amnesty International.

They and two other colleagues who were conditionally released in February are scheduled to appear on May 19 before the Damascus Anti-Terrorism Court, the groups said.

“The Syrian government should not use its overbroad terrorism law to punish peaceful activists for their legitimate work,” said the watchdogs in a joint statement.

“Further, their trial should not be held in the Anti-Terrorism Court, which does not afford defendants basic due process rights according to international fair trial standards,” they added.

Darwish and his colleagues from the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression were detained more than a year ago.

Their workplace was raided and they have since been held incommunicado, rights groups say.

The indictment “accuses them of ‘publicizing terrorist acts’ under article 8 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, enacted by President Bashar al-Assad in 2012. If convicted the men may be imprisoned for up to 15 years,” the rights groups’ statement said.

Their trial “illustrates the government’s repression against critical voices in Syria and fits in a wider pattern of systematic censorship and repression,” it added.

Tens of thousands of people have been detained over the course of the anti-Assad revolt, which began more than two years ago with peaceful protests but quickly evolved into an armed conflict.

Rights groups have frequently accused the authorities of making arbitrary arrests, enforced “disappearances” and torturing political detainees.

(Source / 17.05.2013)

Iran should take part in an international conference agreed by Moscow and Washington to help broker an end to the Syria conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted in an interview broadcast Thursday.

Lavrov told Lebanese television that Russia believed the conference, which he and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced in Moscow last week, should include Iran, a key Syria ally, while stressing that this had not been agreed.

“We must not exclude such a country as Iran from this process due to geopolitical preferences. It is after all a very important outside player. But as yet there are no agreements on this subject,” Lavrov was quoted as saying in a transcript published on the Russian foreign ministry’s website.

The interview aired Thursday on Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen channel but was filmed on Monday, according to the ministry website.

Iran, which is Russia’s main regional ally and backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, “can play the same role as the other outside players, directly interacting and supporting one or other Syrian side in a political or other way,” Lavrov said.

“There are obvious things: Iran has often stressed its solidarity with the Syrian government and representatives of the Iranian leadership regularly visit Damascus,” he said.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Tuesday would not rule out the possibility that Iran could be invited to join the talks in search of a political resolution to end the conflict now in its third year.

In the interview, Lavrov also accused Western powers of wanting to hold narrow talks ahead of the planned conference that would set its agenda and possibly even its outcome without Syrian participation.

“Some of our Western colleagues (this came through also in talks with David Cameron in Sochi) have a desire to narrow the circle of outside participants and start the process with a very small group of countries,” Lavrov said, referring to British Prime Minister Cameron’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

Lavrov suggested that “during these talks, practically speaking, they would decide in advance the teams for the talks, the agenda and maybe even the result of the talks.”

This would end in a “scheme dreamt up without the participation of Syrians,” he warned.

Russia is a traditional ally of Syria and as a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council has blocked several bids to ramp up pressure on Assad to step down.

(Source / 16.05.2013)

A prominent Syrian actress and outspoken activist against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was detained on Thursday, a human rights lawyer said.

“At noon (0900 GMT) today, the security forces detained the free actress May Skaf while she was on her way home in the Mashru Dummar neighborhood” of Damascus, Anwar al-Bunni reported on Facebook.

“Skaf made a mobile phone call to her son, to tell him her identity card had been taken from her by members of the security forces at a checkpoint,” Bunni told AFP.

Her mobile phone has since been switched off, he added.

Skaf’s “detention… confirms that the Syrian authorities… are seeking to silence the voices of cultural and political figures, to try and give credence to their narrative that the regime is fighting terrorism”, Bunni said.

Since the eruption of the uprising in March 2011, the Assad regime has claimed to be fighting “terrorism” in Syria, while denying the existence of any peaceful movement for change.

The uprising morphed into an armed insurgency after the regime unleashed a brutal crackdown on dissent.

Skaf has consistently spoken out against the regime, frequently posting criticism on her own Facebook page.

(Source / 16.05.2013)

The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday condemned the Syrian government’s ”escalation” of the country’s war and backed the opposition Syrian National Coalition in transition talks.

The General Assembly (GA) voted on Wednesday on a Gulf Arab-drafted declaration to resolve the Syrian crisis.

While the non-binding text has no legal force, resolutions adopted by the 193-nation assembly can carry significant moral and political weight, according to Reuters.

The vote result – 107 in favor, 12 against and 59 abstentions – contrasted sharply with that of a resolution that passed last year with 133 in favor, Reuters said.

U.N. diplomats said according to Reuters that the decline in support for Wednesday’s resolution showed growing unease about Syria’s fractious rebel groups fighting Assad’s forces in the two-year civil war.

The Syrian Ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Jafari, called on member states and the ‘Friends of Syria’ Wednesday to vote against the draft resolution, saying it does not provide a political resolution to the ongoing Syrian crisis.

The Syrian U.N representative also questioned the feasibility of backing the SNC and supplying the opposition with weapons, while speaking at the GA.

In the same vain, Russia, China and Iran echoed Jafari’s call, saying that supporting and recognizing the opposition will not resolve the crisis.

The Iranian ambassador at the U.N., Mohammad Khazaee, said the Arab-backed draft resolution is considered a “deviation” from the United Nations’ principles.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia condemned the violence in war-torn Syria and called during the meeting for accepting the resolution, saying it backs the demands of the Syrian opposition.

Saudi Arabia’s U.N. Ambassador Abdallah al- Mouallimi blamed the Syrian government of killing and displacing civilians, adding that the number of those killed may have reached 80,000.

The vote comes as Britain and France delayed a Syrian request for the Islamist al-Nusra Front to be listed by the United Nations as a terrorist group.

The European countries said they want the militants to instead be listed as an alias of al-Qaeda, diplomats were quoted saying Tuesday by Reuters.

Wednesday’s vote comes as Washington and European governments have been mulling the benefits and risks of supplying arms to Syrian rebels.

The Syrian conflict started more than two years ago, but turned into a civil war where the United Nations says at least 70,000 people have been killed.

(Source /15.05.2013)