The announcement of lifting the emergency law and scrapping the supreme state security court in Syria was the best news Syrians heard in decades.
It is at long last time for the Syrian people to enjoy both freedom and security, since they complement, support and lead to each other.
While Syrian Women Observatory condones this step and announces it support for these two important decisions, including all the effects resulting from the emergency law and supreme state security court, this does not mean that those who committed violent acts against our people in the past period should be exempted from receiving their just punishment in through an urgent civil court that is open to the public.
When we say people who committed acts of violence, we mean anyone involved in violence whether from the various regime bodies, or the people that the state claims are armed gangs.
This urgent trial will not only heal many wounds but will also guarantee that no one will be above the law when they engage in violent acts against Syrians, no matter what his or her rank is, and no matter who the victim was.
We would also like to stress that Syrian women are not in a bazaar between the government and the clergy. Thus, the rights gained by women in the past decades are genuine and final, and there is no retreat from that.
Also, there is an urgent need to start working to provide women’s missing or incomplete rights through a national family law that does not include any discrimination based on religion or sex.
Besides being fair and just, the punitive law should also be based on human rights and all articles in violation of these rights should be scrapped, such as the naturalization law, which violated the rights of tens of thousands of Syrian women married to non-Syrians by preventing them from passing on their nationality to their children, whose rights to citizenship were also violated by this law.
This must be treated immediately and retrospectively, along with all other articles that discriminate against women.
The steps taken today are an obvious confirmation that Syria is moving toward serious and radical reformations, but this needs to be implemented urgently.
These reforms should also be enhanced by ending all hanging issues that caused a great deal of pain in the past years, and especially the dossier that accumulated in the past few weeks, and which must be tackled with utmost bravery, strictness and transparency.
Meanwhile, we would like to denounce all media outlets that attempt to mobilize the Syrian people by dividing them into patriotic or loyal people on one side and traitors on the other. We call for instant punishment of those who continue this incitement campaign whether under the pretexts of defending the regime or calling for freedom.
Syria is a civil democracy for every citizen equally, with no discrimination on the bases of religion, ethnicity, sex or colour. This is the Syrian we all want and work to build for a worthy future in the 21st century that can make us and our children proud.
Let us work together for a civil and democratic Syria for all Syrians.
Syrian Women Observatory, Edoterial, 19/4/2011, (At last: No emergency law, no exceptional court and yes to a civil and democratic Syria for all its women and men)