After The Death of Hafez Al-Assad
The party benefitted from the decreased political repression of the last two years of Hafiz al-Asad's rule and after his death, its members were very active in the Damascus Spring, a brief period of intense political and social debate that flourished in the second half of 2000 and in 2001. Riyad al-Turk was arrested as the government stamped out most of this activity in the autumn of 2001, when he outraged the regime's sensibilities by remarking on television that "the dictator has died", in reference to Hafiz al-Asad. He was imprisoned, but later released following international pressure.
In 2005, the party held a clandestine conference at which it adopted new rules and changed its name to the Syrian Democratic People's Party, signalling its adoption of western- style Social Democracy as its ideology, rather than its previous Soviet-style marxism-leninism; since the early 1980s, it had been highly focused on democracy issues, and the 2005 conference essentially formalized a development long in being.
Party leader Faeq al-Mir was arrested in December 2006 after being taped by Syrian intelligence agents calling Lebanese politician Elias Atallah to offer condolences for the death of Pierre Gemayel, Lebanon's Minister of Industry. Al-Mir was charged with "undertaking acts that weaken national sentiment during times of conflict" and "communicating with a foreign country to incite it to initiate aggression against Syria or to provide it with the means to do so" and sentenced to three years in prison. Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release.
Today, the SDPP is a prominent in-country opposition faction. Its membership figures are believed to be very small whatsoever. However, the SDPP benefits from the considerable prestige of Riyad al-Turk, who, despite resigning as party leader in 2005, remains its most well-known face. The party has remained a member in the NDG, and it has also been very prominent in the Damascus Declaration, a more broadly based oppositional manifesto-turned-coalition begun in 2005.
Read more about this topic: Syrian Democratic People's Party
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