DAMASCUS, 6 October 2005 — Syrian President Bashar Assad has sacked 81 judges and increased wages for the profession as part of a reform program for the legal system, an official daily reported yesterday. Ath-Thawra said the president ordered a 25-percent increase in the wages of judges and improved tax and insurance conditions for the profession, but it did not name those faced with dismissal nor give a reason.
The measures - announced after a Cabinet meeting on Monday chaired by Bashar to discuss reforms of the judiciary - are aimed at improving the standard of living of judges and speeding up legal reforms, the paper said. France last year granted aid to Syria to reform its judiciary, which has been criticized for being undermined by corruption.
But human rights activist and lawyer Anwar Bunni, in a statement, criticized the latest moves as “a violation of the constitution ... which underlines the independence of the judiciary with the president as its guarantor ...” “The struggle against corruption passes through a reactivation of institutions and applying the principle of the sovereignty of the law,” the activist said.
Meanwhile, Bashar met yesterday with the head of the Iranian National Security Higher Council Ali Larijani and discussed “pressures against Syria and Iran” along with the situation in the region, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported. SANA said that Bashar and Larijani discussed the “latest regional and international developments, the situations in Iraq and Palestine and the pressures against Syria and Iran.”
They also discussed “friendship and cooperation relations between Syria and Iran and issues of mutual interest,” SANA added. The visit comes amid increasing US-led pressure against both countries. The US accuses them of supporting radical Palestinian groups and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. It also accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear bombs and Syria of allowing insurgents to cross into Iraq. Iran and Syria deny the accusations.
In another development, several demonstrators were hurt yesterday as Syrian police dispersed a sit-in by hundreds of Kurds to demand the return of Syrian nationality to thousands who lost it 43 years ago, a Kurdish party said. “Hundreds of Kurds gathered in Shahbandar Square in Damascus in response to a call from several parties to protest against the policy of oppression against the Kurds and against a racist census in 1962” in the northern province of Hassakeh, the Azadi party said.
Around 200,000 Kurds had their nationality withdrawn at the time. Their identity cards were confiscated and they were denied civil rights. “Despite the peaceful nature of the sit-in, police and security services beat the demonstrators, injuring a number of citizens, including Mustafa Jumaa, the number two of Azadi,” the party said in a statement.
Azadi “denounces these repressive measures and expresses its solidarity with Kurdish citizens from whom their nationality was withdrawn,” it added. The roughly 1.5 million Kurds in Syria, who make up around nine percent of the population, live mostly in the north of the country.
In an unrelated development in neighboring Lebanon, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora vowed yesterday to end a spate of bombings and assassinations that has raised fears of a return to the country’s violent past. “We will spare no security or political effort to strike the terrorists and restore confidence in the government and system,” he told Parliament at the end of a special session on the attacks that have rocked the country in recent months. “Security is our priority and we are working to achieve a secure state rather than a security state.”
Lebanon appointed three new security and judicial chiefs on Tuesday to replace pro-Syrian officials who lost their jobs after May-June elections swept in a parliamentary majority critical of Damascus’ grip on the country. The appointees include a new head of the powerful General Security agency to replace a pro-Syrian general now under arrest in connection with the February killing of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The assassination plunged the country into its worst security crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
The appointments had been delayed for months by political squabbles between pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and Siniora, who is backed by the coalition that campaigned for an end to Syria’s military and political domination. Syria pulled its troops out of Lebanon in April.
