Druze head condemns government’s practices in Syria’s Suwayda
SUWAYDA, Syria (North Press) – “People are enduring an external siege and the internal one imposed by the “bad” government which is the toughest and the hardest one in the city of Suwayda, south of Syria,” head of the Spiritual Committee of Unitarian Druze Hikmat Hajiri said on Tuesday.
Hajiri released a statement addressing all of the social, political and religious components in view of the latest anti-government protests staged in the city.
“Our living conditions have worsened because of their activities (referring to the activities by the Syrian government),” Hajiri said in the statement.
“They have left repeated scars on our hearts. We cannot deal with them as our sons. They are no longer our sons because they have harmed their own kin, humiliate them and wronged them with the pretext of wresting the state’s rights. All these entail us to defy them and complain about them to authorities higher than them,” Hajiri said.
Mass anti-government protests have been staged in Suwayda since January against the government’s recent decision to lift subsidy from the ration card for thousands of families. Protesters blocked many roads and set tires on fire.
“However different we are, we will not allow anyone to confiscate the goodness of people, the purity of their blood and their history magnificent,” the statement said.
Whenever there is corruption, there is calamity and the nation is plagued, Hajiri said.
“Let us all, big and little, fight corruption that has spread and become a general culture to prevent it from reaching the next generations,” he added.
The Syrian people, with various parts, were patient and defended their land and sacrificed themselves so that their country remains sovereign.
“The revolutionary movement in Suwayda has not stopped since the beginning of the Syrian crisis. However, the Shabiha (a term for state sponsored militias of the Syrian government) and other components, who wanted to remain neutral, always tried to suppress them,” a Syrian author told North Press on Tuesday.
Hajiri called on the Druze to live in dignity under a state of law, rule and truthfulness. Every person who is in charge and did not do his duty let him step away. We do not want the brother to shed the blood of his brothers. We have never been enemy to our nation. There are no opponents to the “right” in our nation. The people want to live on the gifts of their own country without humiliation.