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Rice Blasts Syria's Crackdown on Opposition Leaders

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took a new poke Saturday at the latest U.S. nemesis Syria, using an international conference on Middle East democracy in Bahrain to pound Damascus's human rights record.
"We continue to support the Syrian people's aspirations for liberty, democracy and justice under the rule of law," Rice told the opening of the second Forum for the Future in Bahrain designed to promote U.S. reform plans.

"We would like to see an end to the arbitrary detentions of democratic and human rights activists, including Kamal Labwani and all the prisoners of conscience from the 'Damascus Spring.'"

Labwani, a Syrian opposition figure jailed for three years following Bashar Assad's rise to the presidency in 2000, was arrested Tuesday at Damascus airport on his return from the United States.

Rice praised democratic advances in Afghanistan and Iraq, where she made a surprise visit Friday, and noted that with the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon last spring, "1 million citizens in Lebanon have demanded and won their independence from Syrian domination."(AFP-AP)

Beirut, 12 Nov 05, 10:32


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