Syria Solidarity Movement UK • www.syriauk.org • [email protected] • @SyriaUK

Monday 2 November 2015 To MPs of the Scottish National Party, A very fine thing happened at the Scottish National Party Conference in October. A Syrian refugee, Dr Amer Masri, was invited to speak from the main platform. He told Conference of his experiences in a Syrian prison, of being beaten, of being threatened that his wife and mother would be raped in front of him. He told of the thousands more victims of Assad’s prisons, those maimed and those killed. And he talked about the bombings by Assad’s air force that have killed tens of thousands, and have driven millions to flee. He called for action to stop the bombs, for a no-bombing zone, and he was answered with resounding applause in the hall; it was a wonderful moment. On Monday, Stop the War Coalition are holding an event in the House of Commons to campaign against UK intervention in Syria. Amongst those invited to speak will be Alex Salmond. No Syrians have been invited to speak. Nor were any Syrians invited to speak at Stop the War’s meeting on Syria for the Labour Conference fringe in Brighton; nor were any Syrians invited to speak at Stop the War’s meeting on Syria in Manchester. When Syrian civil society activists wanted to speak at a Stop the War meeting on Syria in London in September, they were told it was “not appropriate”. We applaud that the Scottish National Party is listening to Syrians. Will the SNP, having said no to the government’s proposal for a redundant mimicry of US policy, now say yes to Syrians? Yes to enforcing existing UN resolutions. Yes to protecting civilians. Yes to a no-bombing zone. Signatories: Syria Solidarity UK Christine Gilmore Sheena Gleeson Bronwen Griffiths Grant Padgham Kellie Strom Scotland4Syria

Amer Masri

Glasgow Free Syrians

Ahmad Al-Husari

Rethink Rebuild Society

Yasmine Nahlawi

Speech at SNP Conference, 17 October 2015, by Dr Amer Masri, a Syrian refugee in Scotland. https://youtu.be/5Dqfl8Y-JmM

I would like to begin by thanking the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, The Scottish National Party, and the Scottish Refugee Council, for your support for the Syrian people who have fled their homeland for safety. I would like also to thank the great Scottish people who have opened their arms to Syrians, who have shown compassion, who have shown humanity; your kindness and generosity will not be forgotten. My friends, it is an absolute honour to be invited to speak to you today at your party conference. You are all gathered here to freely participate in the democratic governing of your country. free to speak your mind and express your opinion, free to criticise your leaders without fear. We Syrians have been denied these rights for over forty years. When we stood up in 2011 and demanded an end to the dictatorship, we were met with the full and brutal force of the Assad regime. Our aspirations and dreams have been destroyed by air strikes, our optimism and hope destroyed by barrel bombs. Conference, I’m addressing you today as a survivor of the Assad regime’s brutality; as someone who was beaten with electricity cables until I could no longer feel the soles of my feet, until I could no longer walk from the pain; as someone who was threatened to have my wife and my mother raped in front of me if I did not give information. But I’m only one Syrian. Thousands have been tortured and raped by this brutal regime. Tens of thousands have been killed by the indiscriminate aerial bombardments and illegal weaponry, millions have fled its brutality, and the chaos and instability it has brought upon my country. Five years into what began as a peaceful Syrian uprising, we are all now confronted by two global problems that are symptoms of the assad regime’s dictatorship and brutality: the refugee crisis, and the threat of extremism. The fallout from Syria is now the single largest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War. Over four million Syrians have fled in search for safety abroad. Eleven million Syrians, almost double the population of Scotland, are displaced inside Syria. Thousands of others continue to try the dangerous route of the Mediterranean, confronted daily with the terrifying reality of their own likely death. For five years now we have been fleeing barrel bombs in Syria, only to be faced with barbed wire in Europe. We can not allow this inhumanity to continue.

The emerging threat of extremism is one we all face collectively. These terrorists have exploited the chaos and instability in Syria created by the Assad regime. They are a symptom of Assad dictatorship and brutality. We can not simply just bomb these terrorists away, but also we can not sit back and let their terrorism continue to destroy the lives of so many either. We must address the root cause of extremism in Syria, the root cause of the refugee crisis: this is the Assad regime. Now many of you have asked me who the UK should be supporting in Syria. The conflict in Syria is so complex, but my answer is simple: civilians, the millions who are trapped between the barrel bombs and beheadings, they deserve your support. They deserve your protection. Let me be clear. Like all of you here today, no Syrian wants to see more bombs dropped on their country. The reality we Syrians face is that Assad’s air force has systematically and indiscriminately bombed us for over four years now. Assad’s air force has reduced many of our cities, our towns, our homes, to rubble, under which our lives and our families lie dead. Russian intervention, supporting Assad in his indiscriminate targeting of civilians, has only further increased the urgency to protect them. To all of you gathered here today, MPs MSPs, MEPs, members of this great party, and members of the wider public, I say we need to stop the bombs in Syria. We need a no-bombing zone to stop the Assad regime’s indiscriminate aerial bombardment, and save lives. We need a no-bombing zone to protect civilians and reduce the mass exodus of the Syrians from their homeland. We need a no-bombing zone to reduce the threat of radicalisation planted in the aftermath of every barrel bomb and air strike, in the rubble of every destroyed home and life, while the international community looks on. We need a no-bombing zone to make clear to Assad and Putin that there is no military solution to this conflict, and that the international community is prepared to uphold international law, enforce UN Security Council resolutions, and apply the Geneva One communique. We need a no-bombing zone to bring this brutal conflict to an end, and together we can begin rebuilding a free, democratic, and diverse Syria. Thank you.