Sunday, July 17, 2011

AT LEAST 32 KILLED BY ASSAD FORCES IN FRIDAY MASS PROTESTS

Alarabiya.net English

Protesters help a woman with an injury to her arm during a demonstration against President Bashar al-Assad in the suburb of Qaboun, Damascus in this still image taken from video. (File Photo)
Protesters help a woman with an injury to her arm during a demonstration against President Bashar al-Assad in the suburb of Qaboun, Damascus in this still image taken from video. (File Photo)
Syrian security forces on Friday killed at least 32 demonstrators in several parts of the country, including 23 in Damascus, local coordination committees said, according to Reuters. More than a million people took to the streets after the weekly Friday prayers, renewing demands for the departure of President Bashar Al Assad and the regime of his Baath party.

Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP earlier that eight people were killed in the Damascus neighborhood of Qabun alone.
Abdel Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights, said security forces killed three in the capital’s Rukn Eddin area, three in the northern city of Idlib and two in the southern town of Deraa.

Other activists said that in Duma, 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the capital, three people were killed and at least 40 wounded by security forces firing on a rally that attracted 35,000 people.

More than one million Syrians turned out in just two cities -- Hama and Deir Ezzor -- to protest against Mr. Assad’s autocratic regime and demand the release of hundreds of detainees seized in earlier pro-democracy rallies.

“More than a million people demonstrated today in Hama and Deir Ezzor,” Mr. Abdel Rahman told AFP. “It’s a major development and a message to the authorities that protests are getting bigger.”

In the central city of Homs, 15 people were wounded when security forces opened fire, pro-democracy militants said of some of the mass demonstrations staged after Friday prayers.

Mr. Rihawi added that 15 protesters were wounded in Kiswe, in Damascus province.

Security agents used live ammunition to disperse protesters in the Qabun and Barzeh areas of the Damascus, while more demonstrators infiltrated the Madaya, Harasta and Saqba regions, Mr. Rihawi said.

The official SANA news agency said “armed men fired on security forces and citizens in the areas of Qabun and Rukn Eddin in Damascus.”

Syrians had been urged to demonstrate on Friday to demand the release of those people imprisoned in a bloody crackdown on democracy protests, four months after they erupted.

State television reported “the death of a civilian killed by armed men at Idlib.”

It added: “The military and security services are protecting demonstrators against armed men in Deraa province.”

Activists issued an appeal for nationwide protests to mark a day of “Freedom for the Hostages” on The Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page, a driving force behind the demonstrations.

Like their brethren across the Arab world, Syrians have adopted Fridays, when they are allowed to gather for the main weekly Muslim prayers, as their main outlet for dissent.

In tandem with Friday’s protests, organizers called for a simultaneous “Conference of National Salvation” to be held on Saturday in Damascus and Istanbul to look at ways to oust President Assad.

A statement said the conference will “draw up a road map that will bring the country out of despotism toward democracy and define the mechanism to overthrow the regime (as) sought by the (people of the) Syrian street.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters in Istanbul that “Syria can’t go back to the way it was before,” and that it was clear that the Assad regime was making empty promises that were not moving the country forward.

“I don’t think we know how the opposition in Syria will be able to conduct itself, what kind of avenues for action are open to it,” she said.

“What we are seeing from the Assad regime, the barrage of words, false promises and accusations is not being translated into a path forward for the Syrian people, and it is ultimately the responsibility of the Syrian people to choose and chart their own course,” she said.

President Assad “has lost his legitimacy in the eyes of his own people because of the brutality of their crackdown, including today,” Secretary Clinton said.

Since the protests began on March 15, violence has killed 1,419 civilians and 352 members of the security forces, while more than 1,300 people have been arrested, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

State television, meanwhile, said gunmen in the western flashpoint city of Hama, where about half a million people have protested on the past two Fridays, had kidnapped two members of the security forces and a student.

(Mustapha Ajbaili, Night Editor of Al Arabiya English, can be reached at: Mustapha.ajbaili@mbc.net)

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