Police State Tacticss and Civil Liberties Clash in Syria

In an article published in the Washington Post today, reporter Alice Fordham reveals that Syrian activists living in the United States have been threatened in phone calls made from Syria. Threats were made against family members living in Syria if their activities in the United States did not stop. There were also threats made to their own lives. Fordham also reports that the FBI remains in contact with these Syrians living in America to show support for them.

On July 6, the Washington Post article continues, the American State Department summoned Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha to talk to him about the Embassy’s using surveillance techniques against Syrian activists living in Washington. Several days later, the State Department said that it was “investigating reports that the Syrian government has sought retribution against Syrian family members for the actions of their relatives in the United States.”

So, dear readers, the truth is often darker than even the daily headlines report.

And we who live in democratic societies forget that gulags exist, that regimes routinely spy on their citizens, that protesting against tyranny is not only dangerous personally but can bring down the full weight of the regime upon innocent relatives and friends. And, because, as in the case of Syria, these regimes are often accredited and granted ambassadorial status in the West, those who think their activities are safe because they are carried out in Washington or London or Paris, are sometimes mistaken.

“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance” and sometimes even that is not enough to secure basic human rights.

Sometimes it takes extraordinary courage. Think about these activists and think twice before condemning them as rabble rousers. Often, they are patriots of the most elevated kind.