Sunday 3 June 2012

Nabil al-Halabi, from the founder of a pro-Syrian opposition body to a human rights Watchdog

Ali Oubani

Clad in a lawyer gown and guised in law, the man appears on TV channels only to fabricate events and spread rumors and lies; perhaps he craves the very honor of shouldering the practice of law in its definition as the practice of lies.

This is Nabil al-Halabi who has turned, all at once, from being the founder of the "Lebanese Committee for the Support of the Syrian Revolution" into the head of watchdog "Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights."

And his journey has just begun, through appearing on TV as a law activist, much trying to emulate "King witness" Mohammed Zuhair Siddiq-a false witness in the case of the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri-limiting his appearances to very specific channels and dailies, namely the BBC and MTV stations as well as al-Mustaqbal, As-Sharq al-Awsat, and As-Shiraa.

Nabil al-Halabi, lawyer, well known among the bar milieus for his frank-term belonging to the Future Movement, has been recently active in advocating and assisting the so-called "Syrian opposition" on all social, legal, and media levels.

Al-Halabi, so au fait on the most graphic details of events, maintains excellent relations with the members of the Syrian National Council and works within the media and political trends serving the SNC.

In 2011, al-Halabi mobilized under the label of "the committee's coordinator." Today, he is using the stepping-stone legal facet in his TV appearances.
For over a year, he has ventured into Syria's events, scoring illusory heroisms.
Zainab al-Hosni, Syrian, is just an example of his imaginary valor.
The man appointed himself as a defense attorney, only to disprove the regime's version of the story, after the state-run Syrian television has aired an interview with the young lady, proving her to be very much alive and the displayed images of her alleged dead body to be fallacious.

Al-Halabi has also claimed that the Syrian forces had transferred swelled bodies from Jabal al-Zawiya to where Damascus 2011 two bombings occurred.
In a press talk to al-Mustaqbal newspaper, dated March 6, 2012, al-Halabi spoke out on his defense of the "Syrian opposition" and actually justified the existing rifts among the opposition as "a work strategy to topple the regime (!)"
With the impression of a well-versed about all the whys and wherefores, al-Halabi relates how the Syrian opposition implements the concept of civil administration in Syria as a new strategy in the liberated regions, which he terms as "relinquished by the regime as it could no longer hold sway of them."

Al-Halabi enumerates the envisaged councils and committees as follows:
-the humanitarian assistance and relief committee to coordinate the distribution of aid on local communities nationwide with no discrimination whatsoever;
-the security committee marshaled by top security and military deserters in related provinces;
-the justice and human rights committee, which has ventured into documenting evidences on human rights violations by Assad's regime; the committee is to oversee the work of the security committee and register the cases of death, marriage, divorce, and birth;

-the information committee tasked to hold contacts with local and international media means; a spokesperson for each local council is yet to be appointed;
-the education and learning committee which shall work on providing requisite education for the Syrian children, during and after the crisis; the committee will also work on modifying scholar curricula, following the collapse of the regime, only to guarantee that the pro Baath propaganda included in the syllabus is cancelled;
-the health committee tasked to manage dispensaries and hospitals;
-the administration committee tasked to ensure effective coordination and performance of the civil administration councils' committees.
He boasts of founding a committee in support for the "revolution"
(As-Sharq al-Awsat daily, October 12, 2011)

Al-Halabi is certainly as knowledgeable; he is a key founder of the so-called "Lebanese Committee for the Support of the Syrian Revolution," which musters Lebanese and Syrians, among whom poet Omar Idelbi, member of the Syrian National Council and representative of the local coordination committees, Mohammad Enad Suleiman, member of the Supreme Council of Syrian Revolution and Director of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, Mohammad Saleh Nader, representative of the Syrian Kurdish movements, and Mohammad Adel Suleiman, activist in the Kurdish Organization for Defending Human Rights.

In remarks made to As-Sharq al-Aswsat, al-Halabi corroborated that his coordination committee has been mobilizing ever since the eruption of the Syrian "Revolution," on all social and humanitarian levels, to provide aid for the refugees and displaced and legal advice for Syrians facing problems with the Lebanese authorities. He said that the committee has closely followed up on the formation phases of the Syrian National Council. "I have coordinated with the SNC committees and all the bodies of the Syrian opposition, especially on the legal and relief levels," he said.

Source: al-Intiqad, translated and edited by moqawama.org

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