The Syrian Coalition mourned the death of the Syrian thinker and dissident Hussein al-Oudat who passed away in Damascus yesterday at the age of 80. Oudat refused to leave Damascus in spite of all the suffering and harassment he received from the Assad regime’s security forces.
In a statement issued earlier today, the Coalition said that it received the news about Oudat’s passing with much pain and sorrow, praising his long-time struggle in Syria and support for the Palestinian cause, religious freedom and women’s rights.
The Coalition added that Oudat, in all his books and lectures, expressed strong rejection of tyranny and brutality, exclusion and unilateralism.
The statement went on to say that Oudat advocated the possibility of reforming the regime and the country’s problems in peaceful ways and adopted this principle since the Damascus Declaration, which was issued by 99 Syrian intellectuals, including him.
Oudat joined the National Coordination Commission in the early days of the Syrian revolution but later withdrew from it in favor of working with non-partisan groups. He cofounded the Association of Syrian Writers in Cairo in 2012. However, the Union of Arab Writers, which is strongly influenced by the Assad regime, deprived him of his pension in retaliation for his activism. (Source: Syrian Coalition)
