A dialogue session held, Saturday, in the city of Qamishlo in northeastern Syria, carried several recommendations to the Constitutional Committee in Geneva to prepare a constitution that guarantees the rights of all components of the Syrian people.
The Constitutional Committee is a founding assembly licensed by the United Nations, it seeks to reconcile the government and the opposition by amending the current constitution or adopting a new constitution for Syria.
A group of journalists working for media outlets operating in northeastern Syria participated in the session, which was launched by the Ezdina Organization, in cooperation with the US State Department.
“Ezdina” is a non-governmental media and human rights organization concerned with civil society, working to strengthen ties between religious and national components in the regions of northeastern Syria.
The session carried the slogan "A Constitution That Protects Us", a name given by the organization to a new project aimed at informing local communities about what is going on within the United Nations paper on negotiations for Syria.
Avin Sheikhmous, a member of the media office, said that the project "A Constitution That Protects Us" consists of 18 dialogue sessions that will be held over a period of three months in the cities of northeastern Syria.
She added in an interview with North-Press, "Through our project, in every city, we will target five groups consisting of media professionals, clerics, community leaders, women and youth."
Sheikhmos indicated that the project aims to familiarize local communities with the new Syrian constitution and to carry the recommendations of these communities to Geneva through the US State Department.
The session was attended by Alan Hassaf as an observer from the US State Department and Hiwa Osman, a journalist from Kurdistan Region, and the journalist Sirwan Kajjo from Washington.
At the conclusion of the dialogue session, the participating journalists reached a set of recommendations to be forwarded to the Syrian Constitutional Committee in Geneva by the US State Department.
The recommendations stated, "The necessity of recognizing Syria as a secular, pluralistic state that guarantees political, cultural and religious rights for all components and guarantees the participation of the Autonomous Administration in north and east Syria in the Constitutional Committee."
The participants also recommended the importance of amending the decision-making mechanism in the Constitutional Committee and ensuring women's rights, as well as "freedom of the press and not restricting the presidency to a specific nationality, gender or religion".
Source: North Press Agency
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