Licensing al-Itihad al-Ishtitraki festival is an introduction for political parties law in Syria

The Hizb al-Itihad al-Ishtiraki al-Arabi al-Demokrati (democratic Arab Socialist Federation party) yesterday opened its first licensed festival in Syria on the occasion of the 51st anniversary of the July 23rd revolution and the 39th anniversary of the foundation of the party.

In a statement to the press, member of the party's political bureau Raja al-Nasser said that the Syrian authorities offered the party for the first time prior consent to carry out the festival's ceremony officially after it had granted a late licensing for the last year after the end of the occasion.

Al-Naser considered this approval as part of "introductions to issue the parties law in Syria. He said that the leadership of the Baath Party proposed since 18 days the licensing to the national security office in Syria which is affiliated to the Baath Party regional leasdership, and that the consent came since two days. A matter which availed the party to reserve a place within the Damascus countryside governorate after it was obliged in 2002 to hold the rally in a site far from the capital.

Although the Arab Democratic Socialist Federation party is considered an unlicensed opposition party, however, it receives a special treatment which other parties of the democratic national coalition like the political bureau of the communist party, the democratic Baath Party, the revolutionary workers party and the Arab socialist movement do not enjoy. This special treatment, however, is attributed by observers to this party's Naserite Arab national commitment which is not very different from the principles of the ruling Baath Arab socialist party in Syria.