Walid Muallem, the Syrian Foreign Minister is today in Beirut to officially invite President Michel Suleiman to Damascus.
While in Paris, Michel Suleiman received an invitation from the Vatican as well, but he said that Syria has priority. No doubt. The issue now is, will Suleiman ask President Assad to solve the problem of the Lebanese political prisoners jailed in Syria? The families of the detainees will hand a memorandum to Michel Suleiman asking his support to bring them home.
A representative of the families should ask to meet with Sheikh Nasrallah and Sheikh Naim Qassem, and ask their support as well. Hizballah did wonders with those who truly were criminals jailed in Israel, so why not extend a helping hand to those who were brave enough to speak against the Syrian occupation? To the very least they'd force Hizballah to explain why some Lebanese are more important than others.
NOW Lebanon has a very good interview with Ali Abu al Dehn, a man of courage who was a political prisoner in Syria. You can read it here.
Throughout the 13 years I spent in the Syrian prisons of Saydnaya and Tadmur (Palmyra), it never occurred to me that I could be released. I had received a life sentence that had not been delivered by any court.
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When I was released [in December of 2000], I was bitterly disappointed. Indeed, when I and 44 Lebanese detainees were released from Syrian prisons, Lebanese security forces did not free us from our shackles. They prevented us from living the moment we had long waited for, the moment when we would kiss the nation's soil. We were not released but rather transferred to the Ministry of Defense, where we remained for one night.
I walked down the street, but people did not approach me to greet me with pride. It seemed that those talking to me felt compassion for my suffering as they asked me whether I had been beaten and abused. But no one mentioned the reason behind my arrest, i.e. my opposition to the Syrian "presence" in Lebanon. People used to feel pity for my weakness or mock my "idiotic blank stares."
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I asked the politicians I met with to treat the detainees released from Syrian prisons and those released from Israeli prisons on an equal footing. Indeed, upon being released, the latter received a hero's welcome and were granted financial indemnities and hospitalization aids for them and their families. Nevertheless, all I got were shallow promises.
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