Syrian government

To those who claim to 'speak for us'

You need the Turkish government’s approval to have a face-to-face meeting with Colonel Riad al-Asad, who is currently in a refugee camp close to the Syrian border.

But the head of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) can be reached over the phone. Most of the time he seems to be in no mood to talk, like a man who is up against insurmountable odds.

“They know our demands. We have repeatedly told them what we want. There is no need for me to spell them out again,” the colonel told me when I asked him about the first congress being held by the main political opposition, the Syrian National Council, in Tunisia.

Did you send a representative to that meeting?, I asked.

“No, they didn’t invite us,” he replied.

I then asked him whether he thought the Free Syrian Army should have been among the scores of mostly exiled and dissident Syrians who were outlining future strategies.

His answer was blunt: “Yes, we should have.”

Rights group: Syrian expats bullied by Mukhabarat

Amnesty International has just released a report on how Syrian security forces are targeting expat Syrians who have spoken out against the Syrian government, in hopes of silencing them.

The report, titled "Mukhabaraat: Violence and harassment against Syrians abroad and their relatives back home" details just how far reaching the tentacles of the regime are.

Even the parents of expat activists aren't spared. The report details how the parents of one activist [his father is 73 years old, his mother 66] were beaten, left bloody and bruised in Homs because he attended a pro-reform demonstration in front of the White House.

The rights group details the Mukhabarat's activities in North America, Europe and Latin America, documenting over 30 cases of expats being targeted by Syrian security forces, who employ surveillance and open threats in an effort to maintain control over anti-government activists living overseas: