In the first public remarks attributed to Bashar al-Assad since he left Syria, the deposed Syrian president has defended his rule and denied planning his departure as armed opposition fighters closed in on Damascus earlier this month.

A statement said to be written by al-Assad and released on the Syrian presidency’s Telegram channel on Monday presented an account of how and why the former president fled Syria.

“First, my departure from Syria was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battles, as some have claimed,” the statement said.

“On the contrary, I remained in Damascus, carrying out my duties until the early hours of Sunday, December 8, 2024.”

The statement added that as rebel fighters, who al-Assad described as “terrorist forces”, entered the capital, he moved to a Russian base on the coastal city of Latakia to “oversee combat operations”.

But according to the statement, the base came under drone attacks from armed opposition fighters.

“With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested that the base’s command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday 8 December,” it read.

“This took place a day after the fall of Damascus, following the collapse of the final military positions and the resulting paralysis of all remaining state institutions.”

The statement has not been independently verified. Al-Assad has not made any media appearances since he was granted asylum with his family by Russia.

Opposition forces, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched a lightning offensive from the northwestern province of Idlib in November, taking city after city from government forces with little resistance.

They reached Damascus in the early hours of December 8 and announced the end of more than 50 years of the al-Assad family’s iron-fist rule over Syria.  Al-Assad’s presidency, which began after the death of his father Hafez in 2000, saw one of the most devastating wars of the 21st century.

The conflict started in 2011 as Syrians took to the streets to protest against the government as part of the “Arab Spring” pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East that year.

As the demonstrations were met with a deadly crackdown by security forces, the protest movement turned into an armed uprising.

The war, which lasted more than 13 years, fragmented the country, killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.

Rights groups have accused al-Assad’s authoritarian government of perpetrating rampant human rights violations.

Opposition fighters and rights advocates have said they discovered more horrific abuses and signs of torture and mass executions as they freed jails housing thousands of detainees across Syria this month.

Tens of thousands of Syrians believed to have been in government custody remain unaccounted for.

But in Monday’s statement, attributed to “President Bashar al-Assad”, the former president sounded unapologetic about his years in power, saying he considered himself the “custodian” of a national project backed by Syrians.

“I have carried an unwavering conviction in their will and ability to protect the state, defend its institutions, and uphold their choices to the very last moment,” the statement said.

“When the state falls into the hands of terrorism and the ability to make a meaningful contribution is lost, any position becomes void of purpose, rendering its occupation meaningless.”

[BBC]

A student opened fire at a private Christian school in the US state of Wisconsin, injuring six people and killing a teacher and teenaged student.

Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes identified the attacker on Monday night as a 15-year-old female student at the school.

Authorities say the attacker was in attendance at Abundant Life Christian School before opening fire and was found dead at the scene. Six students were injured, including two who suffered life-threatening injuries.

A second grade student was the first to call in the active shooter report, according to Chief Barnes

Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad’s father was in a remote part of Iran when he received the news that he had long dreaded.

His son was to be hanged in Singapore’s Changi Prison.

Suffering from deteriorating health and with just a week’s notice until the execution at dawn on November 29, he was unable to take on the demanding trip to see his son in person for one last time, according to reports.  Instead, the final contact between the father and son came via a long-distance phone call.

Despite a last-ditch legal challenge, Masoud was hanged on the final Friday of November, more than 14 years after he was first arrested for drug offences.

Masoud, 35, became the ninth person to be hanged in Singapore this year.

“With four executions in November alone, the Singaporean government is relentlessly pursuing its cruel use of the death penalty,” said Bryony Lau, Deputy Director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.

Anti-death penalty campaign groups believe that about 50 inmates are currently on death row in Singapore.

Despite opposition from prominent human rights groups and United Nations experts, Singapore claims that capital punishment has been “an effective deterrent” against drug traffickers and ensures the city-state is “one of the safest places in the world”.

A group of UN experts said in a joint statement last month that Singapore should “move from a reliance on criminal law and take a human rights-based approach in relation to drug use and drug use disorders”.

Stories of the plight of death row inmates generally come from activists, who work tirelessly to fight for the rights of those facing the ultimate punishment.

The recent wave of executions has now left them shaken.

“It’s a nightmare,” says Kokila Annamalai, a prominent anti-death penalty campaigner with the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC).

Her work has led her to form a close bond with many death row prisoners.

“They’re more than just people we are campaigning for. They’re also our friends, they feel like our siblings. It’s been very difficult for us personally,” Annamalai told Al Jazeera.

Like almost all of Singapore’s prisoners on death row, Masoud was convicted for drug offences.

Born in Singapore to an Iranian father and Singaporean mother, he had spent his childhood between Iran and Dubai.  At the age of 17, he returned to Singapore to complete his compulsory national service and it was during this period in his life that he was arrested on drug charges.

In May 2010, aged 20, he drove to meet a Malaysian man at a petrol station in central Singapore. Masoud took a package from the man, before driving away. He was soon stopped by the police. They searched the package and some other bags that they found in the car.

In total, officers discovered more than 31 grams of diamorphine, which is also known as heroin, and 77 grams of methamphetamine.

Masoud was arrested for possessing drugs with the purpose of trafficking.

Under Singapore’s strict laws, anyone caught carrying more than 15 grams of heroin can face the death penalty.

Masoud told police that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. He also blamed an illegal money-lending syndicate for planting the drugs in order to frame him.

His defence did not stand up in court and he was sentenced to death in 2015.

Masoud’s sister, Mahnaz, released an open letter shortly before her brother was hanged last month. She described the pain that the death sentence had inflicted on their father.

“My dad was completely heartbroken, and he has never recovered. One of my brothers died when he was 7 years old, from appendicitis … losing another son, he couldn’t accept it,” she wrote.

Masoud had fought tirelessly to appeal his conviction, but his numerous legal challenges failed, as did a plea for clemency to Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Before his own execution, Masoud’s sister recounted how her brother had dedicated his time on death row to helping other prisoners with their own legal battles.

“He’s very invested in helping them find peace,” Mahnaz said.  “He feels it’s his responsibility to fight for his life as well as the others, and he wishes for everyone on death row to feel the same motivation, to be there for each other,” she said.

In October, Masoud was one of 13 death row prisoners who won a case against the Singapore Prison Service and the Attorney General ‘s Chambers, after they were deemed to have acted unlawfully by disclosing and requesting the private letters of prisoners.

The court also found that the prisoners’ right to confidentiality had been breached.

Masoud was also due to represent a group of 31 prisoners in a constitutional challenge against a new law relating to the post-appeal process in death penalty cases. A hearing in that legal challenge is still scheduled for late January 2025, a date that is now too late for Masoud.

Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau said the fact that Masoud’s execution was carried out in advance of the upcoming high court hearing was “not relevant to his conviction or sentence”.

After a two-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, executions have ramped up in recent years in the Southeast Asian finance hub.

According to news reports, 25 prisoners have been executed in Singapore since 2022, with the authorities showing little prospect of softening their approach to capital punishment for drug traffickers.

Anti-death penalty campaigners in the city-state continue to voice their outrage at the government’s actions, using social media to amplify the personal stories of death row prisoners.

However, they have started to receive “correction orders” from government authorities, which are issued under Singapore’s controversial fake news law.

Annamalai’s TJC group has been targeted with the law – the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) – over several posts relating to death row cases.

The campaign group has been instructed to include a “correction notice” with their original posts and also share an online link to a government website, for further clarification.

“It’s always a story of a prisoner facing imminent execution that gets POFMA’d”, Annamalai said.

Describing these stories of individual prisoners as “the most powerful”, Annamalai says the group has been specifically targeted because “people start to care deeply and want to take action when they read them”.

Rights groups have hit out at the authorities’ recent targeting of activist groups.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the continued intimidation and climate of fear that the authorities have created around anti-death penalty activism in Singapore and demand that the harassment of activists ceases at once,” seven anti-death penalty groups said in a joint statement in October.

Elizabeth Wood, CEO of the Capital Punishment Justice Project, based in Melbourne, Australia, and one of the seven signatories to the letter, said that those fighting to end executions are being cast as “glorifying” drug traffickers.

“They announced that they would be creating a day of remembrance for the victims of drugs. That’s another means to accuse activists of glorifying and trying to humanise drug traffickers,” Wood said.

Human Rights Watch’s Lau said the “Singaporean government should not use its repressive and overly broad laws to attempt to silence anti-death penalty activists”.

Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs declined an interview request from Al Jazeera.

In a recent statement, the Home Affairs Ministry said they “do not target, silence and harass organisations and individuals simply for speaking out against the death penalty”.

Annamalai of TJC said she will continue her activism, despite facing a POFMA correction order for a post on her personal Facebook page. Though facing the risk of a fine or even a prison sentence, Annamalai said she will not make a correction.

“They’re aggressively and desperately trying to silence us, but they will not succeed,” she added.

[Aljazeera]