Appeal on the World Day of Peace

On this World Day of Peace, the Syria Democratic Institute and the office of human rights and legal affairs of the Syrian Democratic Forum appeal to the Syrian authorities and all armed factions fighting in Syria to immediately stop all kinds of hostilities. This cease-fire should be accompanied by gestures of goodwill, including the release of prisoners and hostages. In addition, we call upon all government and opposition political forces to lay out a roadmap for peace in Syria. 

We request the United Nations and all the world powers to contribute to creating an atmosphere conductive to the achievement of peace in Syria, instead of fueling the conflict due to their conflicting political interests.

Finally, we appeal to the civil-society organizations and forces in Syria and in the world to assume their responsibilities and propose initiatives that contribute to the realization of peace in Syria, even if this peace is gradual.

Mercy for the Martyrs, speed recovery for the wounded, freedom for the prisoners and peace for our beloved Syria.

Damascus, 21 September 2013

Syrian Democratic Institute
Human rights and legal office of the Syrian Democratic Forum

Pressure also to immediately stop the massacre!

A statement by the Syrian Democratic Forum

September 18, 2013

The tyrannical regime has pushed the Syrian people’s problem into the fray of the regional and international conflicts, in order to avoid meeting the people’s demands for freedom, dignity and social justice. After its inability to win over our people, the regime has implicated its own paramilitary militias and the Syrian army, which has used all kinds of heavy weaponry in this conflict. Finally, the regime has committed massacres using chemical weapons, provoking the international community and putting the country at risk of devastating foreign military strike. However, it has unwillingly accepted to surrender its chemical weapons, after United States and Russia have reached an agreement on this matter. Indeed, this acceptance represents the first real concession from the regime since the Syrian revolution has started.

The Syrian Democratic Forum takes into account the American-Russian agreement signed in Geneva on September 14, which has spared Syria a war; no one knows how this war would have ended or how many casualties it would have resulted in. However, the Forum calls for continued pressure on the Syrian authority to ceasefire immediately and put an end to the massacres that it has been committing every day.

Indeed, it makes little sense to stop the regime from using the chemical weapons while remaining silent on its continued killings using various other types of weapons. It makes no sense to send the international teams for the purpose of chemical weapons disarmament while the domestic war, lawlessness and provocations, are being carried out by the militias from both sides, the regime and the extremist groups.

It is imperative to reach a cease-fire and to engage immediately in negotiations based on the international agreements laid out in the Geneva-1 communiqué and founded on the Syrian national consensus outlined in the National Covenant and Transitional Phase documents, generally known as the Cairo documents.

The tyrannical authority shall not win in its battle against the Syrian people, neither militarily nor in negotiation.

Long live the revolution of freedom and dignity.

The Syrian Democratic Forum

It is time to get rid of repression

A statement by the Syrian Democratic Forum

September 4, 2013

The despotic regime of Bashar al-Assad has launched for more than 29 months a bloody repression against the Syrian’s people revolution.  Furthermore, the regime has used all forms of violence with no impunity, continuously surpassing in its brutality unprecedented levels. In addition, this violence has been exerted, not only against the militants, but randomly against unarmed civilians, no matter whether they are women, men, and children, young or old. Indeed, the regime has committed against our people numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Furthermore, The Syrian authority has taken the country into ruin and chaos. It has pushed the various constituents of the Syrian people into a devastating civil conflict. It released a lot of gangs that are terrorizing and extorting citizens in many areas of the country. Plus, in its mad fight to keep power, it has destroyed the pillars of the state and its institutions.

Its criminality and defiance have reached the point of using chemical weapons against its own people, thus violating all international conventions and putting the country at the brink of a looming and potentially devastating foreign military intervention.

We, in the Syrian Democratic Forum, have always rejected foreign interference, by any party, in the Syrian affairs. Further, we have been always keen to find a political solution to the conflict, in order to preserve the state institutions and to ward off the Syrian people and the Syrian blood. We, in these difficult moments that the tyrannical authority has brought about, call upon the following:

• The soldiers and officers of the regular armed forces, that the time has come to get rid of the tyrannical authority, which has been bringing the country into this end, to stand with the people and the revolution and to converge with the soldiers and officers of the Syrian Free Army who, have already Aligned to the side of their own people; indeed, the country needs you all.

• The soldiers and officers of the Syrian Free Army free and popular resistance, that the revolution is not murder, torture or revenge, but the revolution is first and foremost a political victory for the sake of freedom to all Syrian citizens, preservation of the country, protection of the various contingents of the people and submission of the most notorious criminals to the courts of law, whatever pains and viciousness of repression that they have inflicted.

• All political forces in Syria, to unite in this difficult time and to be open on other political factions of all spectra that believe in the unity of the nation and equal citizenship for all Syrians; to distance themselves from using foreign intervention for their own personal interest; to work fast and hard to win the people working in the state institutions on the side of the revolution; and to engage in dialogue with those who are still fearful of the change, explaining to them that what will be built will be for all Syrians.

• All Syrian citizens, that these the moments will determine whether we deserve to be one people in one country that knows how to resist injustice, reject extremism and forgive and reach out to each other .

Whatever happens in the coming days, we, in the Syrian Democratic Forum; will be on the side of our people, all Syrian citizens from all spectra and tendencies; will not be a tool in the hands of any foreign power; will always stand for winning the objectives of the Syrian revolution, defending the independence and sovereignty and our people’s freedom and dignity.

Long live the revolution of freedom and dignity; long Syria free and sovereign.

The Syrian Democratic Forum

The Assad regime continues its cruelty

News release

 August 21, 2013

The Syrian regime forces have bombarded this morning the Eastern and Western Ghouta, in the suburbs of Damascus, with surface-to-surface missiles carrying chemical weapons. As a result, thousands of people have become sick and hundreds, most of them are children, have passed away.

Indeed, the Syrian regime continues its cruelty and its use of all the internationally-banned mass-destruction weapons that it possesses against innocent civilians, thus ignoring all the humanitarian warnings issued by the United Nations and regional and international countries.

The Syrian Democratic Forum appeals on the UN chemical-weapons investigative team, present currently in Syria, to head to the target sites in Eastern Ghouta, expeditiously, to investigate these serious violations. Furthermore, we demand the opening of humanitarian corridors that ensure the arrival of medical aid, as the shortage of this aid has caused the death of scores of innocent civilians.

Finally, the Forum holds the Syrian regime and its supporters the full responsibility for these heinous unspeakable crimes.

The Syrian Democratic Forum

Extremist organizations are not part of the Syrian Revolution

A statement of the Political Bureau of the Syrian Democratic Forum

August 3, 2013

Throughout Modern History, several radical extremist organizations have emerged, taking advantage of the lack of development and the loss of hope for better future in a number of countries. These organizations have been used for a variety of purposes by different countries, including the Syrian authorities. Several countries have played roles in supporting, in secret or in public, these organizations and arming them, in addition to creating other extremist groups with opposing doctrines.

The Syrian regime has mobilized some of these organizations to serve its own interest, sometimes in Lebanon and others in Iraq. Then, it has proceeded to divert the Syrian Revolution toward violence and sectarianism and forced it to beg foreign powers for support, as a reaction to the regime’s brutality and its insistence on its military and intrusive security approach. This resulted in the deviation of the revolution from its original peaceful and civic goals, making the final choice appears to be between maintaining the existing regime and the take over by the extremist organizations.

These organizations have grown in Syria because of the loss of hope in any political solution, as well as a result of the support that they received from certain foreign countries that have intended, specifically, to settle scores with the Syrian authorities. Thus, foreign fighters have come to Syria, and a number of Syrians have joined the ranks of these organizations as a reaction to living in humiliation and indignity. The regime, in its turn, has relied on fighters from other sects. This situation has contributed to dragging the country into civil war, fueled by the presence of Syrian and foreign fighters on both sides.

These extremist organizations have taken control of some of the country's resources and imposed on Syrians certain ways of life that are divergent from their social norms and tolerant Islam.  Furthermore, they turned against the free Syrian army and assassinated some its leaders to maintain their gains. Plus, pushed by foreign countries, they attacked Syrian Kurds causing further fragmentation within the Syrian people ranks.

We, in the Syrian Democratic Forum, facing this situation that threatens the future of Syria, call on all political and military forces of the opposition to take a clear position toward these extremist groups, whatever the price; otherwise, the revolution, even the country, will go into utter destructiveness. We, also, call for an immediate cease-fire by all parties to save the country and its unity.  Plus, we call upon all the foreign forces that have come to fight in Syria to withdraw from the country immediately.

The Syrian Revolution has started to bring about freedom, equality and democracy, not to impose any specific-group views by the force of arms.

Long live the revolution of freedom and dignity; long live Syria as a country of equality for all its citizens.

The Political Bureau of the Syrian Democratic Forum

For a national consensus to achieve freedom and dignity for the Syrian people

A statement of the Syrian Democratic Forum, the Syrian National Bloc and the Kurdish National Council of Syria

June 12, 2012

Facing the close-mindedness of the Syrian power system, its repressive logic and its threats to the proper being and existence of the country; facing the explosion of sectarian violence with the accompanying massacres and crimes, and the fragmentation and division that the Syrian opposition is experiencing; facing the drift of some of the opposition factions towards the trap of violence that has been put by the Syrian power system, and the confiscation of the Syrian decision by foreign powers;

The undersigned parties have gathered and agreed on the followings:

• The Syrian Revolution is a project for freedom, dignity and social justice, which aims to establish a state of complete equality in citizenship and freedoms for all Syrians, respecting their particularities, and protecting their rights.

• There is no solution for the Syrian crisis but through the departure of Bashar al-Assad and the symbols of his power system, based on despotism, and which has persistently arrested, tortured and killed the Syrian people. The solution is the establishment of a new Syrian republic based on rule of law and well-functioning institutions. This should only come through a transition phase in which an interim regime, agreed upon by all political forces, shall strive for setting up elections of a constituent assembly, that will draft a new constitution for the country. Also, this interim regime shall implement programs for national reconciliation and compensation for the families of martyrs and victims, shall hold the perpetrators of crimes accountable, and shall rebuild the country through the legal mechanisms, away from political money. 

• The signatories consider that the existing regime is responsible for implicating the armed forces in a battle against its own people. They urge the Syrian army to stop immediately obeying to the regime’s orders, and to converge with the Free Syrian Army and the revolutionary people to preserve the blood of the Syrians. Furthermore, they consider that the restructuring of the armed forces, placing security services under their leadership and the merging of the Free Syrian Army, constitute major priorities for the transition period.

• The signatories do not accuse any spectrum or sect of the Syrian society of collaborating with this regime, and consider that the regime is the one that pushes for the sectarian and civil strife in order to disperse apart the Syrians, and thus to delay its departure. Therefore, they call upon all Syrians to reject any behavior that prejudice the unity of the Syrian people.

• The signatories stress that Syria is a sovereign and independent country; and thus it should not be the ground on which, or through its people, countries and forces settle their disputes.  Also, they call upon all foreign powers to agree on a solution that ensures the departure of the present power system, and guarantees the sovereignty and independence of Syria, as well as working to help the Syrians in their plight, providing aid to them through accredited international organizations, in coordination with the of the United Nations missions.

• The signatories consider, as they strongly belief in democracy and pluralism, that no one is the trustee on the Syrian people, and that all popular mobilization and political forces are invited to agree upon the bases of a national covenant that unites all Syrians and details the transition phase towards democracy.  

• The undersigning groups shall create a joint standing committee in order to coordinate their positions and to join their efforts to unite the opposition, to connect with the regional and international forces that support the Syrian people, and to back the mission of the United Nations and Arab League to stop the violence and to transfer power, on the basis that the Syrians should have sovereignty over the destiny.

The Syrian Democratic Forum

The Syrian National Bloc          

The Kurdish National Council