Recently a public debate has been stirred about whether actions preventing someone from public platforms (and therefore depriving them of the money they would have been paid) is “economic terrorism”.

The answer is no. No one has an automatic right to use a platform to spread their message. They can do so on their own, but they do not need organisations to support or pay them for it.

On this occasion the words economic terrorism are even more bizarre when the individual involved has actively been involved in supporting genocide and mass murder by Assad and his forces. The support is so complete that no one from the opposition is innocent. Any one who has carried out humanitarian work to save lives is Al Qaeda in her eyes along with anyone who has ever raised an eye brow against regime attrocities.

I could fill this blog post of images of actual terrorism instead of this “economic terrorism” that is being accused here. It kind of reminds me of the attacks against the BDS movement.

Granted that there are individuals who cannot support the opposition in Syria and suggest that there are geopolitical games being played in the country. This is true. But that does not mean automatic support for Assad anf his regime, where they have actually gone out of their way to promote a sectarian narrative and have carried out the vast majority of attrocities in the country.

There is an argument by some that someone who has supported Palestinian rights should not be sidelined, however this is a bad argument. You cannot support rights and dignity in one place but ignore and reject them in another place.

That just allows for smears that people are only outraged when the perpetrator is from one or another group and that outrage has nothing to do with the actual abuses and mass murder.

Besides, the Palestinians are also victims of Assad. Many Palestinians who were refugees in Syria have now been made refugees from their refugee camps too.