Over 20 cities in the world have participated in the international Blood Elections campaign organized by activists in Syria and elsewhere in the world.
We denounce the electoral farce (held on June 3rd) set up by Assad in order to legitimize him and divert attention from the constant bombing and chemical attacks on the population living in the liberated areas that are no longer under his control.
His hypocrisy reaches the limit of irrationality and psychopathy once he believes that he will deceive the world with this electoral fraud whose result is previously known. This is the first time in decades in which more than one candidate participates in the elections, although the other two are part of groups loyal to Assad. The other potential opposition candidates have been excluded by the Constitutional Court. Maher Abdul Hafez Hajjar, former activist of the Communist Party and an MP (a parliamentarian), member of an important family in northern Aleppo, is one of the participants in the farce. Hassan Abdullah al-Nouri, a lawyer and former leader of the Chamber of Industry in Syria is the other accomplice of the Damascus’ butcher. None of the candidates are allowed to say they are able to rule the country better than Bashar and in media interviews they have only words of praise for the current president as well as the way he fights against the national “crisis”.
Not only are illegitimate these elections, for the theater installed together with the candidates or for the crimes against humanity committed by the regime that calls these elections (with more than 300,000 dead, many others illegally detained, 18,000 killed under torture and two of the country largest cities, Aleppo and Homs, literally turned into ruins), but also are the elections illegitimate because almost half of the Syrian men and women may not vote on these fraudulent elections, once it will carried out only in areas under Assad’s control, excluding the inhabitants of the areas controlled by the rebels. From the 3.5 million refugees outside the Syrian borders, it will be allowed to vote only those who are legally registered at the embassies, which means that the vast majority will not vote or will be forced to do so for fear of retaliation. Meanwhile, in Syria, the few schools and colleges that are still operating have scheduled the final examinations for the election days to force students to vote for the greatest war criminal of the XXI century. The UN, the National Coalition and the Member States of the Group of Syria Friends have condemned the elections. The ELS and other revolutionary groups that remain active in Syria have done the same.
The international event denouncing the elections under the hash tag #BloodElections, created by an activists group of Syria countryside brought together activists coordinated among themselves since the United States, Brazil and Argentina until Indonesia, being present also in most of the other European capitals and cities and North Africa. It was held in Barcelona a rally at Plaza Cataluña against the elections, in which information on the slaughter in Syria were distributed and the revolution current status was explained as well. Syrians, Moroccans, Catalans, Iranians and Yemenis, among others, have participated and have shown their indignation at these blood elections. Concentrations in Madrid, Granada and Seville were also planned. Current Roja and IWL-Fourth have joined the calls for understanding that the only solution for the Syrian people is to defeat the dictatorial regime in force in the country for over 40 years.
