Despite Foreign interfere Syria to hold local council elections

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has issued a decree announcing the date for local council elections to be held across the country within two months.
Assad on Wednesday signed the decree which will see nationwide council elections held on December 12th, 2011.

Syrian Minister of Local Administration Omar Ibrahim Ghalawanji told SANA news agency that the move shows the determination of the leadership in committing to have the elections conducted by the end of 2011 as was promised.

Meanwhile, an 18-year old woman has appeared on Syrian state television on Wednesday to deny foreign media reports that she was tortured and killed by security forces.

The woman, identified as Zainab al-Hosni, said that she run away from home in Homs because she was abused by her brothers, and decided to speak out after seeing a report that she had been mutilated and beheaded.

Last month, Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, and Syrian activists reported that al-Hosni was arrested by security agents in July and that her decapitated body was returned to her family for burial after a few days.

Amnesty said she was targeted in order to pressure her activist brother, Mohammed Deeb al-Hosni, to turn himself in.

“I came today to the police to say the truth,” she said. “I am alive in contrast to what the lying satellite television stations had said.”

Syrian state TV said her death had been fabricated “to serve foreign interests”.

Zainab al-Hosni’s mother has confirmed that the woman who appeared on state television on Wednesday is her daughter.