Riad Seif

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Riad Seif ( Arabic رياض سيف Riyad Saif , DMG Riyāḍ Saif ; * November 25, 1946 in Damascus ) is a Syrian entrepreneur, dissident and longstanding critic of the Assad government. Since May 6, 2017, he has beenPresident ofthe National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces .

During the Damascus Spring 2001 he led the opposition “Forum for National Dialogue” but was arrested at the end of the year and sentenced to five years in prison. After serving his sentence, he was released in 2006, but arrested again for shorter periods in 2008 and 2011. Seif was an independent member of the Syrian parliament from 1994 to 2001 . He has been suffering from cancer since 2011 at the latest .

Life

Seif was born in 1946 as the son of a carpenter in the conservative Damascus al-Midan district into a large family with many children. After the sixth grade, he started an apprenticeship with a local shirt manufacturer in order to contribute to the family income. However, he continued school alongside work and, after graduating, began studying economics at the University of Damascus , which he dropped out to set up a small textile company with two of his brothers in 1963. With the import of fabrics, the company grew continuously. In the mid-1970s, the Seifs divided the company into three sole proprietorships, as the two conservative Riyadh brothers considered the idea of ​​employing women as workers to be un-Islamic.

Rise to industrialist

Riad Seif's business model was much faster and more sustainable than his brothers. His business policy was unorthodox for Syria: Seif paid his employees better than the state-owned companies, gave them a share of the profits, encouraged them to take responsibility for themselves and offered them social services such as a day nursery and a bus service that brought the young workers home in the evening. The other mainstay of his success was barter deals with the Soviet Union , in which the Syrian state paid off debts and interest in goods. This meant that the Syrian state paid Seif in Syrian liras , whereas its products were delivered to the Soviet Union. He was able to achieve high prices for fashion products that were not produced in the Soviet Union itself. In the meantime, Seif had more than 1000 employees, making it the largest industrial company in the country.

With the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the barter business came to a standstill. Seif was on the verge of bankruptcy and had to borrow money from friends and employees in order to start a new business. He began to manufacture sportswear for Adidas in 1993 and finally received the concession for the independent marketing of Adidas products in Syria. In the hope of having a successful model for the whole country with his business ideas, he ran for parliament for the first time in 1994 and was elected with the highest number of votes ever.

Seif's son Iyab died on August 2, 1996. In 2007, Seif claimed in a newspaper article critical of the government that this happened under "mysterious and suspicious circumstances".

In 1998 Seif ran again and was re-elected with the support of many young people, current and former workers and some intellectuals. Once again, his focus was primarily on reforming industrial and economic policy, but his focus drifted more and more towards corruption , in which he identified the second main enemy of the Syrian economy alongside the economic incompetence of many Syrian entrepreneurs. The response from the Syrian regime was prompt, and Seif was subjected to high tax demands, including public assertions by the Ministry of Finance that his office was up for foreclosure. Seif was forced to sell his company and live on the support of his relatives. In 1999 he published a brochure documenting the dispute with the Ministry of Finance, and his parliamentary speeches were also distributed in print.

Damascus Spring and Opposition Activities

After the death of President Hafiz al-Assad and the seizure of power by his son Bashar , Seif hoped for political reforms. His relationship with the young head of state was good and Bashar al-Assad seemed to be in favor of Riad Seif. During the so-called “ Damascus Spring ” in 2001, there was actually a brief phase of liberalization in Syria, during which many intellectuals came together for political events and made explicit use of the new freedom of speech. However, the situation quickly turned back into repression. After subliminal campaigns by the regime against Seif failed to curb Seif's involvement, its “Forum for National Dialogue” was banned in February 2001 along with a number of other political clubs, and a judicial investigation was initiated shortly afterwards. Despite these obvious warning shots by the regime, Seif did not hold back.Instead, he attacked the controversial businessman and presidential cousin Rami Machluf in parliament and criticized the circumstances surrounding the granting of the GSM licenses in Syria, one of which went to Machluf's SyriaTel .

On September 5, 2001, four to five hundred people gathered in Seif's apartment for a discussion event, at which Burhan Ghalioun was the guest speaker. Demands for a real multi-party system were made. The next day, Seif's immunity from MPs was lifted and he was arrested along with other civil rights activists.

Seif was sentenced to five years in prison in 2002 for "attacking the authority of the state" and "incitement to hate". Amnesty International followed the case continuously and advocated Seif's release on several occasions. Seif still had to serve his entire sentence and was finally released in 2006.

In 2008, Seif was arrested and jailed again, this time for signing the Damascus Declaration of October 2005.

On May 6, 2011, Seif was arrested again in connection with the ongoing protests against the Syrian government . The following day he was charged with violating the ban on demonstrations.

On October 7, 2011, Seif was assaulted by around ten members of the Syrian government's security forces. The attack occurred when Seif left the al-Hassan mosque in the Midan district of Damascus after the Friday prayers. Seif sustained a number of injuries, including a broken arm.

Seif was elected President of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces on May 6, 2017, replacing incumbent Chaled Khoja .

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Sonja Zekri: Panzer against the insurgents , In: Süddeutsche Zeitung May 9, 2011, p. 7.
  2. ↑ a b c Prize Winner 2003 - Riad Seif | Syria. (No longer available online.) In: The City of Weimar's Human Rights Prize. 2003, archived from the original on July 26, 2011 ; Retrieved April 19, 2011 . 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.menschenrechtspreis.de
  3. ^ A b c Volker Perthes: Secret Gardens - The New Arab World , Berlin 2002, p. 256
  4. ^ Riad Seif: My Experience in the People's Assembly: Delusions of Democracy under Tyranny. In: The Syria Monitor. April 21, 2007, accessed April 17, 2011 .
  5. ↑ Volker Perthes: Secret Gardens - The New Arab World , Berlin 2002, p. 257
  6. ↑ Volker Perthes: Secret Gardens - The New Arab World , Berlin 2002, p. 258
  7. ↑ a b Volker Perthes: Secret Gardens - The New Arab World. Berlin 2002, p. 259.
  8. ^ Amnesty International: Syria: Prisoner of Conscience, Riad Seif. September 6, 2001, accessed February 20, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Volker Perthes: Secret Gardens - The New Arab World. Berlin 2002, p. 260.
  10. ^ Amnesty International Archives. Retrieved April 17, 2011 .
  11. ↑ Many dead in Friday protests in Syria - shooting at opposition members. In: tagesschau.de . May 7, 2011, archived from the original on May 8, 2011 ; Retrieved May 7, 2011 .
  12. ↑ Leading Syrian Opposition Figure Killed, and Another Publicly Beaten. In: The New York Times . October 7, 2011, accessed October 16, 2011 .
  13. ↑ Mobile phone video on Youtube: Attack on Riad Seif. In: youtube . October 7, 2011, accessed October 16, 2011 .
  14. ^ National Syrian coalition elects Riad Seif as its new boss. In: ZEIT Online. May 6, 2017. Retrieved December 6, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Seif, Riyadh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES رياض سيف (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian entrepreneur and dissident
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Damascus