With the aim to enhance civic participation and improve the legislative environment through an open dialogue between the authorities and CSOs, Especially with regard to developing the legislative environment and means of communication between the two parties and review the difficulties faced by civil society organizations.
Fraternity Foundation for Human Rights (FFHR) – on March 31 ,2021 in Qamishli city – held a dialogue session on the best way to enhance the role of CSOs in NE-Syria in the civic Engagement and enactment of new associations’ law.
The dialogue Seminar was attended by Mr. Hekmat Habib, the Deputy Executive Presidency of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main ally of the United States of America. Perwin Abdel Fattah, represented FFHR and besides our foundation there were 5 of our partner organizations: the Kurdish Committee for Human Rights ; Syrian Women Council, Path Foundation from Raqqa, and ARTA Foundation for Media. We also hosted Miss Hanin Bitar from ICNL, talked about international standards for the right to form associations. The facilitator of the Seminar was our LSUs Manager, the Lawyer OMAR ALI.
The dialogue Seminar was attended by 25 organizations of civil society from the cities of Raqqa , Hasaka and Qamishli in northeastern Syria.
Mr Habib spoke about the SDCsrole to promote participation in NESyria and welcomed the active role of civil society organizations in this regard. He also said that:
We have received a lot of complaints from organizations regarding licensing and employment, we promise that we will handle all complaints
Our colleague, Perwin Abdel Fattah, began her speech with Developments experienced by civil society since 2011 And how the Syrian government’s legislation affected the right to form associations and neglected its main role and how did the Syrian conflict parties continue to practice the same methodology!
Since 2018, we called the local authority through a policy paper on the legal shortcomings which we mentioned about Law No. 3 of 2017 And we demanded to be changed .
We filed many complaints on the Office of Organizations Affairs violations and are waiting for the authority to fulfil its promise to change the law, we hope that we will participate in the drafting process of the new Law ..!
The Kurdish Committee for Human Rights explained at length the best means of communication between civil society and the local authority, and proposed a set of recommendations :
There should be a competent authority for self-management with known address and names
There should be an open channel (hotline) between civil society leaders and that body.
To facilitate the work of organizations by accessing information.
Lifting restrictions on the work of organizations and providing them all support.
Building a real partnership between civil society leaders and self-management regarding legal and social issues, and to have a role in sovereign decisions.
The Syrian Women’s Council also talked about the need to involve women’s organizations in decision-making and policy-making.
the Colleague in ARTA presented a good view on the importance of the media’s role in promoting civic participation and the need for its independence in order to be able to deliver the media message.
In compliance with the procedures to prevent Coronavirus, the recommended procedures have been followed to protect the participants as much as possible.
