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Country Advice Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: SYR33192 Country: Syria Date: 28 April 2008 Keywords: Syria – Muslim Brotherhood – entry-exit procedures This response was prepared by the Research & Information Services Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. This research response may not, under any circumstance, be cited in a decision or any other document. Anyone wishing to use this information may only cite the primary source material contained herein. Questions Please provide information on the following: 1. The establishment, evolution, ideology, leadership and structure of Ikhwan-ul-Moslemin in Syria. 2. The current estimated number of members, activities, influence, areas of operation and geographical concentration of Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. 3. The treatment of members or suspected members in the 1990’s and beyond, including the seriousness with which the authorities view any association with the organisation. 4. Any demonstration or civil unrest in Hasaka in the last 10 years and the government’s response. 5. Exit procedures, security controls and the likelihood of a Syrian national suspected of anti- government activities being able to depart Syria for Cyprus (in 1998) and Lebanon (in 2004), particularly if the national in question has been previously detained. RESPONSE Please provide information on the following: 1. The establishment, evolution, ideology, leadership and structure of Ikhwan-ul- Moslemin in Syria. According to sources the Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimeen) originated in Egypt in the 1920s. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was established in Syria by student scholars returning from Cairo in the 1940s. It participated in elections during the 1950s and early 1960s, establishing itself as a leading opposition bloc in parliament. In 1963 it was banned by the Baath party which had seized power in a coup that year. Forced underground, various militant Sunni splinter groups emerged and an intense terrorist campaign against the regime began. According to Larbi Sadiki, in Revolutionary and Dissident Movements of the World, bloody conflicts were recorded in 1964, 1976-1980, 1982 and 1986. In 1980, following an assassination attempt on President Assad, membership of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) became a capital offence under Article 49. In 1982 an armed insurrection broke out in Hama. Government forces responded by laying siege to the city for three weeks. The estimated number of casualties ranges between 10,000 and 30,000. Most sources agree that the MB as an organised group within Syria was effectively decimated. The leaders and many members fled the country. The current head of the organisation, Ali Sadr al-Din al- Bayanouni, resides in London after being forced from Amman in 2000. Under Al-Bayanouni the Syrian MB has moderated its stated objectives and principles. In October 2005, the group joined other opposition groups in signing the Damascus Declaration, which called for the establishment of a liberal democracy in Syria. In 2006 the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood joined with former Syrian vice president, Abdul Halim Khaddam, and other lesser known secular and Kurdish expatriate dissidents, and announced the formation of a National Salvation Front (NSF), as well as plans to establish a “government-in-exile” (Sadiki, L. 2004, „Syria‟ in Revolutionary and Dissident Movements of the World, ed B. Szajkowski, 4th ed, John Harper, London – Attachment 1; for more information on the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, see: Gambill, G. 2006, „Dossier: The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood‟, Mideast Monitor, vol. 1, no. 2, April/May http://www.mideastmonitor.org/issues/0604/0604_2.htm – Accessed 23 April 2008 – Attachment 2; International Crisis Group 2004, Syria Under Bashar (II): Domestic Policy Challenges, Middle East Report N°24, 11 February – Attachment 3). A 2006 Mideast Monitor “dossier” on the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood gives a good introductory background. The article follows in full below: Although nominally a branch of the eponymous movement founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1920s Egypt, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is a creature of the socio-economic, cultural, and political setting in which it evolved. Whereas Banna was a man of modest means who rose up to challenge post-colonial Egyptian elites, the Syrian brotherhood was established in the mid-1940s by pedigreed ulama (scholars of Islam) closely aligned with wealthy Sunni landowners and merchants in Hama and Aleppo. This ultra-conservative alliance was cemented by overlapping socio-economic and sectarian fault lines, as the political forces challenging urban notables were dominated by Christian, Druze, and Alawite minorities (10%, 3%, and 12% of the Syrian population, respectively) viewed as heretics by fundamentalist Muslims. While the Egyptian brotherhood rejected democracy as an import from the West, the Syrian branch participated in Syria‟s sporadic interludes of democratic political life in the 1950s, establishing itself as a leading opposition bloc in parliament. The movement was banned in 1958 when Syria joined with Egypt in the United Arab Republic (UAR), but quickly returned to politics after the dissolution of the UAR in 1961, winning ten seats in parliamentary elections. After seizing power in a 1963 coup, the Arab nationalist Baath Party banned the brotherhood and tightened state control over religious institutions to weaken its influence, while launching major nationalization and land reform programs to weaken the power of Sunni notables. In 1964, the brotherhood network in Hama took up arms in defiance of the new “apostate regime,” but government forces quickly overran the poorly trained and equipped rebels. Brotherhood leader Issam al-Attar was forced into exile, while local organizers of the uprising went underground to prepare for jihad against the Alawites. Wealthy Syrian expatriates in Europe and the Arab Gulf provided financing for the underground, while Jordan and Iraq provided safe havens and specialized paramilitary training. The Baathist regime further inflamed tensions by steadily concentrating power in the hands of Alawite officers (particularly after the ascension of Hafez Assad as president in 1970), but outbreaks of the war with Israel in 1967 and 1973 created an inhospitable environment for settling internal scores. Once the dust settled, however, conditions were ripe – the Sunni community was seething with popular resentment toward the conspicuous wealth, corruption, and extravagant lifestyles of the regime‟s Alawite security barons (especially Assad‟s brother, Rifaat) and outrage over Syrian intervention in Lebanon in support of Christian militias against a predominantly Muslim left-wing alliance. In 1976, underground jihadist networks launched a highly sophisticated assassination campaign against prominent Alawite government officials, military officers, and Baath party leaders, as well as pro-government Sunni clergymen. Although brotherhood leaders publicly denied any links to the violence, the government cracked down heavily on the movement, arresting scores of its activists. Following the June 1979 massacre of 32 Alawite army cadets, the regime adopted a new tactic by executing several jailed brotherhood leaders. Unable to root out the cells responsible for the killings, the government henceforth responded with furious retribution. After a failed assassination attempt against Assad in 1980, hundreds of detained brotherhood members were gunned down in their cells. As the scale of violence escalated, mass demonstrations and strikes began erupting in Sunni areas and for a brief time revolution was in the air. Then, in the predawn hours of February 3, 1982, a Syrian army patrol in Hama stumbled upon the hideout of the city‟s underground commander, Omar Jawwad (aka Abu Bakr), and was ambushed with heavy losses. As military units ringed the city, mosque loudspeakers once again called for jihad against the Baath. This time, Hama was given no quarter. Much of the city was reduced to rubble and up to 20,000 people lost their lives in three weeks of horrific bloodletting (less than 100 had died in 1964) led by Assad‟s brother, Rifaat. Organized resistance to the Assad regime quickly disintegrated. Most brotherhood members who weren‟t picked up by the secret police quietly went on with their lives, while hardcore elements stayed underground and continued to carry out isolated acts of violence (until their inevitable arrests) or found their way to Afghanistan (many of them later popping up in Al-Qaeda). After eliminating the brotherhood‟s infrastructure in Syria, government spent enormous sums of money building and upgrading mosques, subsidizing higher religious education, and establishing some 120 Assad Schools for the Recitation of the Koran (informal recitation schools having been key vehicles of paramilitary recruitment for the brotherhood). Cut off from their followers and increasingly bereft of foreign support, the brotherhood‟s leadership in exile became paralyzed by infighting. Since the election of Ali Sadr al-Din al-Bayanouni as general supervisor (muraqib am) in 1996, the brotherhood has negotiated on and off with the government (through intermediaries) in hopes of reaching an accommodation. These negotiations made some progress after the ascension of Bashar
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