Local coordinating committees

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Local Coordinating Committee
(LCC)
purpose Planning and organization of the revolutionary events on site
Chair: Khaled Abu Salah, Razan Zeitouneh, Rami Nakhleh, Ghyath Matar †
Establishment date: March 2011
Seat : in different places in Syria
Website: lccsyria.org

The Local Coordinating Committees ( Arabic لجان التنسيق المحلية, DMG Liǧān at-tansīq al-maḥallīya , English Local Coordination Committees in Syria ( LCC ), French Comités Locaux de Coordination ) came into being after the outbreak of the uprising in Syria in March 2011 in various cities in the country. The committees took responsibility for planning and organizing local events in their own communities and documented the numbers of people killed by the regime.

In the course of time, many committees have developed coordination among themselves in order to synchronize their work, their actions on the ground and their political positions. These various coordinating committees together formed the local coordinating committees of Syria as an umbrella organization with members from most of the cities of Syria. The umbrella organization was previously part of the Syrian National Council . However, not all local committees can be organized under the LCC, which is why the National Council does not represent all groups operating inside the country.

founding

The LCC emerged in March 2011 from local groups that published reports on protests during the uprising in Syria and that have developed into a national network dealing with the reporting and organization of protests.

The groups were formed from informal networks of dissidents and friends. Some activists have worked in the human rights field for many years . The members of the committees, which were only formed during the uprising, have often never been involved in politics and are mostly young. The New York Times describes the network as "a rising force in Syrian politics that has earned respect for the long-active but also divided dissidents."

Members and structure

The network is decentralized and works underground. It has diverse social and religious backgrounds. The LCC is less well known internationally than other organizations in the Syrian opposition. In many Syrian cities and provinces, mostly students organize themselves in self-governing groups. The mostly young resistance activists, some of whom have since fled to neighboring countries for fear of arrest, operate primarily via social networks and websites. Some of them oppose foreign interference.

The local committees are financed by donations from individual supporters. The globally active initiative Adopt a Revolution from Berlin mediates partnerships with individual LCCs.

The structure is constantly changing depending on the situation, especially if its members are arrested or killed. The first committee was established in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus . In February 2012 the network had 14 local committees, each in Daraa , Homs, Baniyas , Saraqeb , Idlib , al-Hasakah , Qamishli , Deir ez-Zor , on the Syrian coast, Hama , ar-Raqqah , as-Suwaida ', Damascus and around Damascus . The Homs committee was already the most active in June 2011 . During this period, the network, consisting of 35 guides, tried to report daily from the various locations. The following local coordinating committees are currently under the umbrella of the LCC:

  • Occupied Golan Committee
  • Committee Dar'a
  • Da'el Committee
  • Al-Dumayr City Committee
  • As-Suwaida Province / Shahba Branch and Surroundings Committee
  • Damascus Committee
  • Syrian Revolution Committee in Dummar Project
  • Damascus Surrounding Committee
  • Darāyā Committee
  • Al-Ruhaybah Committee
  • Homs Province Committee - The Media Office
  • Committee of the Syrian Revolution in the city of Homs / Bab Al-Siba ', Dayr Baa'lbah, Al-bayyadah and Al-khalidiyah
  • Hama Committee
  • Idlib Committee
  • Kafruma / Jebel Al-zawiyah / Idlib committee against Bashar Al-Assad
  • Saraqeb Committee
  • Tseel's Committee
  • Syrian Coast Committee
  • Baniyas Committee
  • The official spokesman for the revolution in the Euphrates Valley in Deir-ez-Zor
  • Ar-Raqqa Province Youth Committee
  • United Committee of Al-Hasakah Province
  • Committee in Al-Hasakah
  • Shabab Sawa coalition in Qamishli
  • Noroz revolution in Syria
  • Committee of Doctors of Damascus
  • The Free Lawyers of Syria
  • Union of Free Students
  • Coalition of Free Students from Damascus University
  • Hanano youth movement

Attitude and goals

On the Internet they oppose military intervention from outside and emphasize the independence and sovereignty of the Syrian people. You are calling for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Syria. A study by Cooperation for Peace quotes: “Militarizing the revolution would minimize popular support for and participation in the revolution. ... Militarization would carry the revolution into an arena where the regime has a distinct advantage and erode the moral superiority that has characterized the revolution from its inception ”. This has stood out since the beginning of the revolution. Local coordination committees like Daraya tried to win the sympathy of the state soldiers through their peaceful actions. B. offered them water and roses. This came through an initiative by activists Ghiyath Matar and Yahia Shurbaji . Both were later arrested in September 2011. Ghiyath was murdered in custody. The ambassadors of France and the USA also attended his funeral service . Yahia Shurbaji has not yet been released from prison.

Although the LCC has repeatedly and according to its website re-emphasized its peaceful stance on various occasions, there is a lack of clarity about its non-violent political stance. The American journalist Phyllis Bennis even counts the local coordination committees organized in the Syrian National Council among the “internal and external supporters of the armed opposition”.

Reporting from the protest areas

Since independent reporting is not possible in Syria, the reports of the local coordinating committees on the ground in the protest and conflict areas are one of the main sources of news about what is happening in the country, which is picked up by international media. However, the accuracy of these messages can not be verified due to the entry ban for journalists and NGOs .

The LLC activists upload videos and pictures of the government's protests and repression measures on the Internet, particularly on YouTube and on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter . The activists are also being contacted via secure communication lines from various international media channels such as France 24 and al-Jazeera to get a report from them on the situation in their areas.

Documentation of human rights violations

An LCC working group deals with the documentation of human rights violations. This is done directly by those affected or by eyewitnesses in accordance with international standards. Some activists have been active in the field of human rights for several years, such as lawyer Razan Zaitouneh , whose main activity before the outbreak of the uprising was defending the rights of people arbitrarily arrested for political reasons. She received the Anna Politkovskaya Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Expression in 2011. Razan was persecuted by the regime for her work at the LCC. In the meantime, she continued to work on documenting human rights violations in Syria until she was abducted by strangers on December 10, 2013 in the opposition-controlled city of Duma . Other LCC human rights activists were also arrested, such as women's rights activist Hanadi Zahlout, who was later released.

Care of the wounded

Because of the civil war, makeshift clinics have to be built in the places where the demonstrations take place, where doctors treat the wounded at risk. Some member coordinations of the LCC have been established to set up such field hospitals, among them the coordinating committee of the Doctors of Damascus . This coordinating committee has received the Homo Homini Prize 2011 for their life saving actions. The local committee was co-founded by Ibrahim Nahil Othman , a doctor of the revolution. However, he was later shot dead at the Turkish border when he tried to flee to Turkey.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b About the LCCs. (No longer available online.) LCC website, archived from the original on February 5, 2012 ; Retrieved July 25, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lccsyria.org
  2. ↑ Rebels fearing government onslaught. Belfast telegraph, February 12, 2012, accessed February 12, 2012 . >
  3. ↑ Syrian activist Ghiyath Matar's death spurs grief, debate. Washington Post, September 14, 2011, accessed July 25, 2012 . >
  4. ^ Syria: Comply With Agreement. Human Rights Watch, January 6, 2012, accessed July 25, 2012 . >
  5. ^ A b c d Coalition of Factions From the Streets Fuels a New Opposition in Syria. The New York Times, June 30, 2011, accessed February 5, 2012 .
  6. ↑ a b c Everyone against everyone and everyone against Assad , article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 31, 2012.
  7. ^ Disorganized Like a Fox. Foreign Policy, June 29, 2012, accessed July 21, 2012 .
  8. ↑ Syrian News Agency: Khaled Abu Salah standing in front of flames ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. > @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / saaa25.net
  9. ^ Background: The Syrian opposition. (No longer available online.) Stern / dpa, July 11, 2012, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 21, 2012 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.stern.de   >
  10. ↑ Donation website ( Memento of the original dated May 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.soutenir-la-syrie.com
  11. ^ Syrian activists appeal to West to be adopted. USA Today, February 28, 2012, accessed February 28, 2012 . >
  12. ↑ Christine Schweitzer , Clemens Ronnefeldt, Karl Grobe-Hagel , Andreas Buro: Syria between nonviolent uprising and civil war , March 2012. Archived from the original on April 11, 2014 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed August 6, 2012). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.koop-frieden.de
  13. ↑ Syrian activist dies in detention after being tortured . In: FRANCE 24 . Archived from the original on February 17, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 6, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.france24.com
  14. ↑ Razan Zeitouneh: Uprising against Assad: Roses for the soldiers . In: Die Zeit , October 6, 2011. Retrieved August 6, 2012. 
  15. ↑ Susanne Fischer: Deported, tortured, killed . In: Der Tagesspiegel Online , October 1, 2011. Retrieved on August 6, 2012. 
  16. ↑ Ambassador to funeral America and France in solidarity with Assad opponents ... . In: FAZ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . September 15, 2011. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
  17. ↑ Anja Pietsch: Assad goes out the light . In: The weekly newspaper . January 19, 2012. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
  18. ↑ Phyllis Bennis : Syria: No to Interventions, No to Illusions . In: AG Peace Research . 2012. Retrieved November 3, 2014.
  19. ↑ Damascus suburb shelled, 18 killed across Syria: NGO. (No longer available online.) France 24, June 16, 2012, formerly the original ; Retrieved July 21, 2012 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.france24.com   >
  20. ↑ Syria army launches fierce attacks on rebels. Aljazeera English, July 23, 2012, accessed July 25, 2012 . >
  21. ^ Syrian woman activist wins human rights award. Amnesty International, October 7, 2011, accessed July 28, 2012 .
  22. ↑ Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2011, Razan Zaitouneh. November 1, 2011, accessed July 28, 2012 .
  23. ↑ My ghost town. Die Zeit, July 26, 2012, accessed on July 28, 2012 .
  24. ↑ An icon of peaceful resistance kidnapped . In: Adopt a Revolution . December 11, 2013. Retrieved April 15, 2014.
  25. ↑ Activist out of danger . In: Amnesty International . October 13, 2011. Retrieved July 31, 2012.
  26. ^ The Homo Homini Award . In: People in Need . March 6, 2012. Archived from the original on March 10, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 31, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.clovekvtisni.cz
  27. ^ The Homo Homini Award . In: youtube.com . March 14, 2012. Retrieved December 16, 2012.
  28. ↑ Wolfgang Bauer: Doctors in Syria: The doctor of the revolution . In: The time . Retrieved July 29, 2012.