March 14 Hails Syria's Muslim Brotherhood Document as 'Historic'
The general-secretariat of the opposition March 14 coalition on Monday lauded the political document issued on Sunday by Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, describing it as “historic in terms of its timing and content” and saying it represents “an essential and landmark addition to the promises of the Arab Spring.”
The Brotherhood vowed on Sunday to share power and respect democracy if President Bashar al-Assad is toppled.
The group issued a 10-point document on the future of Syria, calling for a “civil, modern, democratic and pluralistic state based on a civil constitution” with equality among all citizens and respect for human rights.
The reassurance came after Islamist parties catapulted to power in Tunisia and Egypt in the wake of Arab Spring uprisings, feeding concerns about religious and secular freedom there.
The movement has had no strong presence inside Syria since 1982, when Assad's father and predecessor, Hafez, ordered the military to quell a Brotherhood rebellion in the central city of Hama, sealing off the city in an assault that killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people.
Membership in the group inside Syria is punishable by death, but the group has remained active outside Syria's borders.
The March 14 General Secretariat said the document “clearly sides with universal human rights, as endorsed by the divine laws and the international treaties.”
The document “ridicules the Syrian regime’s claims that the Islamist movement in Syria is hostile to democracy,” March 14 said in a statement, stressing that “reality and the approach of this document prove that the ‘secularism’ of the Baathist Syrian regime … is the most hostile to democracy.”
March 14 stressed “the importance of the document’s call for a comprehensive national reconciliation,” saying “it is capable of putting an end to the policy of systematic segregation practiced by the Syrian regime for decades in order to intimidate its people.”
The March 14 General Secretariat also hailed the Muslim Brotherhood’s call for establishing “the best equal relations with the Arab brothers, topped by Lebanon, whose people had suffered – the same as the Syrian people – from the woes of the regime of corruption and tyranny.”
Source: Naharnet
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