Jumblat Says Laying Rebel Flag on Father's Tomb Freed Him from 'Big Prison'
Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat said Sunday that by placing the Syrian rebel flag on his father’s tomb he had “exited the big prison of the Syrian regime.”
“I believe that when I placed the flag of the Syrian revolution on the grave of Kamal Jumblat -- who was assassinated by the Syrian regime and the bunch manipulating Syria’s fate – I believe that that had cleared my conscience and that I have exited the big prison the Syrian regime, or the pro-Assad bunch, had put us in for decades,” Jumblat said in a phone interview with Al-Arabiya television.
“The issue is not about minorities, the theory of (scaring the religious) minorities has collapsed … The Syrian regime has tried to use the theory of minorities, but the Syrian people are united in the face of tyranny and oppression,” the Druze leader added.
On Friday, Jumblat placed the Syrian rebels’ flag on the grave of his father in al-Mukhtara to mark the 35th anniversary of the assassination of the PSP’s founder.
"After 35 years, this is the day to tell the truth, to myself and to others ... Long live free Syria!" he said after placing the flag.
Jumblat stressed during the interview that “all the Syrian people -- from Jabal al-Arab to the mountains of Saleh al-Ali, and from al-Raqqa and Deir Ezzor to all other regions, to Homs, Hama and Damascus – all of them have one demand: ending oppression for the sake of dignity, freedom and decent living.”
The Druze leader said that he will do everything he can to back “every free Syrian citizen, wherever he is.”
“In Syria, there are (social) majorities that have not joined (the uprising) for objective reasons: the circumstances of fear. We must understand their circumstances. All the Syrian people will rebel soon,” he added.
Jumblat stressed that the embattled Syrian regime “has ended.”
“I send a message to the friends of this regime: to Russia which is still backing this regime with equipment, arms and U.N. vetos. It’s about time for Russia to acknowledge that the Syrian people want freedom and dignity and to stop supplying this regime with the tools of repression, murder and tyranny. It’s about time for Russia to exit its isolation and heed the will of the Syrian people and the Arab peoples,” Jumblat added.
Jumblat has become one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s fiercest critics in Lebanon by continuously slamming the Syrian regime’s deadly crackdown on dissent.
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