Social Media Monitor 22-10-2012
Bab Touma Bombing
An explosion struck the Christian-majority quarter of Bab Touma in old Damascus city center on Sunday October 20, 2012, killing at least 10 people. On the same day an explosion targeted another Christian neighborhood in Aleppo, the Syriac Quarter, resulting only in material damage.
(Click here to see photos of the Bab Touma bombing.)
Most opposition activists accused the Syrian regime of orchestrating both bombings, because it is in its interest to destabilize the country, as they argued.
Amnesty International member Amjad Beazi considered the explosions an attempt to win the hearts and mind of minority groups because it allows the regime to put the blame for such acts on the Islamists.
Abd al-Aedy, a Palestinian writer who was a refugee in Syria and now lives in Germany, said that he believes the explosions in Damascus and Aleppo were carried out by the Syrian regime. Aedy also believes that the Syrian regime stands behind the car-bomb attack in the Christian quarter of Achrafieh in Beirut on Friday October 19, which killed the Lebanese senior intelligence official Wissam al-Hassan.
“Now that the Syrian regime discovered that destroying Syria did not end the revolution, has Bashar [al-Assad] started putting his threats about setting the whole region on fire into action?”
Nora Abu Hazel said that the Syrian regime is trying to drag Christians into the ongoing conflict.
“After the regime armed Christians a while ago, it seems that the time for explosions has come… I won’t be surprised if it blamed the explosions on ‘armed terrorist gangs’… It’s a dirty game to involve Christians in their lost [war],” Abu Hazel wrote on Facebook.
Firas Tlass, the son of former Defense Minister General Mustafa Tlass and brother of Brigadier Manaf Tlass, who defected and fled to Paris, wondered how a car full of explosives could pass by security checkpoints.
“Either security forces put the car there, or the Free Syrian Army has infiltrated security personnel at checkpoints; this question needs a reasonable answer,” he wrote on Facebook.
An impossible truce?
Update: The Syrian TV announced that the army shall halt military operations during the Al-Adha holiday, from the morning Friday October 26, till Monday October 29. Reuters reported that Al-Hajar Al-Aswad, a poor suburb south of Damascus, was targeted by artillery fire artillery a few hours before midnight.
Over the past week, the United Nations and Arab League’s joint envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi called for a truce between the Syrian regime and the armed opposition during the four-day Al-Adha Islamic holiday, which will start on Friday. Doubts prevail over the possibility of reaching such an agreement, especially after a statement made by an Arab League spokesman on Monday, declaring that it is unlikely to reach a truce. The Syrian government is yet to declare its decision on the matter.
The call for truce was one of the favorite topics in the Syrian blogosphere last week.
Tammam Rifai said it was unlikely that the Syrian regime would accept such a truce.
“Let’s talk logic; does anyone hope that there could be a truce with such a regime? This regime is killing injured people in hospitals, and arresting and torturing others to death. Do you expect [security members] to suddenly become angels?”
Activist Adnan Ahmed said he hopes for a truce as all Syrians need to rest from the daily killing, even though Brahimi should offer sustainable solutions that would last longer than just than the holiday.
“Let there be some days during which people are relieved from death… at least one could [pray] for those who were killed,” he wrote on Facebook.
Faisal Kasim, Al-Jazeera’s famous Al-Ittijah Al-Muaakis talk show host, who is Syrian, wrote on twitter (@kasimf) that the regime will not approve the truce as long as it claims to be fighting terrorism: “It’s absurd to talk about a truce in Syria; the regime does not recognize the existence of the opposition or the revolutionaries… and it’s unreasonable for them to make a truce with [groups] they consider terrorist.”
Salim Qabbani, a media activist who lives in Beirut, criticized this ongoing debate.
“It’s not up to people outside of Syria to decide whether or not there should be is a truce… it’s the decision of the revolutionaries, activists on the ground, as well as Free Syrian Army members who live in Syria, not the ones in Turkey,” she wrote on Facebook.
Fadi Arkoudi also criticized this debate taking in social media and suggested that it is detached from reality.
“Our brothers on Facebook are against the truce and they insist on continuing their Facebook battle against the regime without giving it a moment to catch its breath… Like the martyrs of the revolution and share the political stance… long live the Facebook revolution,” he wrote on Facebook.
A Syrian without hijab
A photo of Syrian female activist Dana Bakdounis was published on the Facebook page “The Uprising of Women in the Arab World”. The photo shows Bakdounes holding her passport which has a photo of her before she took off her hijab, which caused a lot of criticism.
This Facebook page calls for the freedom of women from Arab countries and has around 46,000 ‘likes’. Most of the photos published on this page show women holding banners explaining why they support the women’s ‘uprising’ without giving any concrete explanation about the form of this uprising and how to carry it out on the ground.
Maya Hamma condemned what Dana had done and refused to describe it as part of the women’s uprising in the Arab world. She wrote on Facebook: “If she was forced to wear the hijab and she removed it, she does not have to justify her act by calling it a participation in the uprising.”
Ayah Atassi thinks that what Dana did is a revolutionary act as she confronted a society that imposes restrictions on women: “Personally, I believe that taking off the hijab needs a lot of courage… society can forgive a woman that does not wear a hijab, but it can never have mercy on a woman who takes hers off.”
Syrian artist Juan Zarir posted on his Facebook page a comment made by a young woman who’s forced to wear a hijab.
“Our parents forced us to wear hijab without our consent… the revolution is not the reason [to reconsider wearing hijab]… but it could be that we became more mature and we started to think more about everything around us,” the comment read.
Syrian Photographer Jamal Daoud, who lives in Malaysia, described Dana as “a real revolutionary.” He wrote on his Facebook page: “Dana Bakdounis is bolder than the heroines that you intellectuals read about in books– I bet you don’t read anything. She jumps higher than Lara Croft and gives more than Mother Teresa. She is purer than Snow White and crazier than Lady Gaga. [She is] the granddaughter of Zenobia and Ishtar.”
