Israel Matzav: Syria threatening dissidents around the globe

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Syria threatening dissidents around the globe

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Assad regime has been threatening (and worse) Syrian dissidents even outside Syria (Hat Tip: Weekly Standard).

Syrian embassy staffers are tracking and photographing antiregime protesters and sending reports back home, Syrian activists and U.S. officials say. Syrian diplomats, including the ambassador to the U.S., have fanned out to Arab diaspora communities to brand dissidents "traitors" and warn them against conspiring with "Zionists."

A half-dozen Syrian-Americans interviewed by The Wall Street Journal in recent weeks say that as a result of their activities in the U.S., family members have been interrogated, threatened or arrested in Syria. The Obama administration says it has "credible" evidence that the Assad regime is targeting relatives of Syrian-Americans who have participated in peaceful U.S. protests.

In an interview Tuesday, Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador, dismissed the allegations by Syrian dissidents and U.S. officials as "slander and sheer lies."

One Syrian-American scientist in Philadelphia, Hazem Hallak, said his physician brother, Sakher, was tortured and killed in May by Syria's intelligence agencies, the mukhabarat, after he returned from a medical conference in the U.S. Syrian agents in Aleppo were obsessed with obtaining a list of Syrian activists and U.S. officials the brother had allegedly met during his stay, Hazem Hallak said.

"They want to intimidate us wherever we are," said Mr. Hallak, who said he believes Syrian agents or regime sympathizers tracked his brother inside the U.S. Mr. Hallak said his brother wasn't involved in anti-Assad activities.

...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, meanwhile, is investigating allegations that Mr. Moustapha and his staff have threatened or harmed Syrian-Americans, according to three individuals interviewed by the FBI in recent weeks. An FBI spokesman said the bureau won't comment on any possible investigation into the Syrian embassy's activities.

Ambassador Moustapha is having none of it. "The Embassy of Syria challenges the State Department to provide a single shred of evidence that the embassy has harassed or conducted surveillance on anyone," he said by telephone from Damascus, where he said he is on vacation. "We challenge any authority or organization that has extended such a ridiculous and preposterous claim to provide proof."

Asked if he was aware his travel inside the U.S. had been limited to a 25-mile radius around Washington, Mr. Moustapha said, "This is true, and we did the same to the American ambassador here" in Damascus. He called the U.S. move "reciprocity."

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Malek Jandali, a Syrian-American composer and pianist, performed his song "I Am My Homeland" at a rally in a park across from the White House on July 23. The piece includes the lyrics "Oh homeland, when will I see you free?"

Four days after the event, Mr. Jandali said, his parents were attacked and beaten in Homs, Syria. Two plainclothes agents handcuffed Mr. Jandali's 73-year-old father as he approached his home, duct-taping his mouth and nose, and then forcing him to open his front door. Mr. Jandali said the men then assaulted his mother, breaking her teeth and punching her in the eye.

"They were referring to me—saying things like, 'This is what happens when your son makes fun of us,'" Mr. Jandali said in an interview.

Syria's intimidation campaign has reached into Europe and Latin America in recent months, according to Syrian protesters.

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Amr al-Azm, an anthropologist at Shawnee State University in Ohio, previously worked as a consultant for Syria's first lady, Asma al-Assad, looking into ways to modernize Damascus's government. In June, he went to Turkey for the first major conference that brought together Syria's opposition groups.

Getting word of Mr. Azm's trip, Mr. Moustapha sent an email to the academic in June where he sarcastically criticized the anthropologist for breaking with Damascus. "You have single-handedly changed the ugly fundamentalist face of those convening there to that of a secular, enlightened and progressive opposition led by a former presidential advisor," the ambassador wrote, according to a copy of the email viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The FBI, subsequently, sent agents twice to visit Mr. Azm at his rural Ohio home and voiced concerns about his security. Mr. Azm said he got the impression that the FBI had seen intercepted communications that suggested Syrian activists could be targeted inside the U.S.