Al-Jazeerah: Cross-Cultural Understanding

 

News, May 2011

 
www.ccun.org

www.aljazeerah.info

Al-Jazeerah History

Archives 

Mission & Name  

Conflict Terminology  

Editorials

Gaza Holocaust  

Gulf War  

Isdood 

Islam  

News  

News Photos  

Opinion Editorials

US Foreign Policy (Dr. El-Najjar's Articles)  

 

 

 

Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 

Six Syrian Protestors Killed by Security Forces in Various Cities, Despite Regime's Dialogue Pledge

May 14, 2011

Protestors killed despite regime’s ‘dialogue’ pledge

France 24, May 14, 2011

By News Wires (text)

REUTERS -

Only hours after the regime promised to hold a ‘national dialogue’, security forces fired on protesters in cities across the country killing six, but rights campaigners say the regime may be changing tactics in response to international pressure.

Security forces killed six people in demonstrations across Syria on Friday calling for an end to autocratic rule, rights campaigners said, after the government pledged to hold a “national dialogue” in coming days.

The Syrian leadership has drawn increasing international criticism and modest sanctions over its military crackdown on two months of pro-democracy unrest in which rights groups say about 700 people have been killed by security forces.

The killings occurred in the southern city of Deraa, cradle of the two-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, as well as in the Damascus suburb of Qaboun and the central city of Homs, prominent rights campaigner Razan Zaitouna said.

Another rights campaigner said security police fired at a night demonstration in the eastern town of Mayadeen, 40 km (40 miles) east of the city of Deir al-Zor, injuring four people.

He said a security clampdown had intensified in recent days in a tribal area near the border with Iraq, where most of Syria’s output of 380,000 barrels of oil per day are produced.

But the bloodshed and death toll after Friday prayers was less than on previous occasions. There were fewer clashes and the numbers of protesters were lower in areas where Assad dispatched troops and tanks to stamp out rallies.

One rights activist said he had been told by a senior Assad adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, that the president had ordered troops and police not to fire on demonstrators.

Security forces backed off from confronting a large demonstration on Friday in Rastan near the central city of Homs, a witness said.

“There are signs that Assad may be changing tactics, possibly in reaction to international pressure,” a senior Western diplomat told Reuters. There were less shootings, but fact that people came out today to protest with the heavy security deployment is remarkable.”

Hours before Friday’s killings, Information Minister Adnan Hasan Mahmoud said in televised remarks that Assad would hold a “national dialogue in all provinces ... (in) the coming days”.

Mahmoud said army units had started to leave the coastal city of Banias and completed a pullout from Deraa, although residents there reported tanks outside mosques in the morning.

Prominent activists said that dialogue would only be serious if the government freed thousands of political prisoners and allowed freedom of expression and assembly.

Aref Dalila, an economist who met Shaaban last week, said “the domination of the security apparatus over life in Syria” must end for different opinions to be represented.

“We are long used to these ‘dialogues’ in Syria, where the regime assembles its loyalists in a conference and the other opinion is either in jail or underground,” he said.

Assad’s combination of repression and reform gestures earlier in the crisis—including lifting a 48-year state of emergency—had failed to quell the dissent.

Thousands demonstrated in towns and cities across Syria after the weekly Muslim prayers, activists and witnesses said, Assad has deployed armoured forces to suppress major centres of protests and Shaaban said earlier this week Syria had passed the “most dangerous moment” of the unrest, the stiffest challenge ever to his rule.

His Baath Party has run Syria with an iron fist since a 1963 coup, most of that time with his late father Hafez al-Assad as president. On his death in 2000, Bashar took power.

‘Huge crowd’ protests in Hama

Witnesses said there were protests in Damascus, in a suburb of the capital and the city of Hama where Assad’s father crushed an armed Islamist uprising in 1982. A Kurdish opposition figure said thousands marched in three towns in eastern Syria.

Residents and activists also reported protests in towns and villages across the southern Hauran Plain, saying troops fired in the air to disperse a crowd of hundreds who took to the streets of Deraa despite an afternoon curfew.

Despite the minister’s comments about an army withdrawal, they said tanks in front of mosques and heavy security prevented most people attending prayers. A 2.30 p.m. to 8.00 a.m. curfew started two hours earlier on Friday at 12.30 p.m.

In the Damascus district of Barzeh and in the suburb of Saqba, witnesses said protesters chanted “We want the overthrow of the regime”, the slogan of the Arab uprisings which swept out the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia earlier this year.

Just north of the capital, security forces fired tear gas into a crowd of 1,000 in the town of Tel, residents said.

In Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border and in village of al-Shujail north of Deir al-Zor, thousands demanded Assad’s removal, according to activists and two residents in the eastern region where authorities carried out mass arrests last week.

Rallying Point

The main weekly prayers are a rallying point for protesters because they offer the only opportunity for large gatherings. Fridays have seen the worst death tolls in the wave of unrest.

The Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists said troops have killed 700 people, rounded up thousands and indiscriminately shelled towns during the protests.

The government says about 100 troops and police have been killed. A statement from the official SANA news agency said on Friday more than 5,000 people had surrendered to authorities over their role in the protests and been released, under an amnesty offer which runs until May 15.

In nearly two months of unrest, protests and bloodshed have spread across southern towns, cities on the Mediterranean coast, Damascus suburbs and the central city of Homs. But the two main cities of Damascus and Aleppo have remained relatively quiet.

Rights groups have chided the United States and its European allies for a tepid response to the Syria violence, in contrast with Libya where they are carrying out a bombing campaign they say will not end until Muammar Gaddafi is driven from power.

The United States and Europe have imposed economic sanctions on senior Syrian officials but not on Assad himself. Western powers say they could take further steps.

Britain summoned the Syrian ambassador to London, warning that unless Syrian authorities “stopped the killing of protesters and released political prisoners...(the EU) would take further measures to hold the regime to account”.

The U.N. human rights office said the death toll may be as high as 850 and urged the government “to exercise restraint, to cease use of force and mass arrests to silence opponents”.  

Syria: amateur videos of Friday protests

13/05/2011

Protest in the north-eastern town of Qamishli, on May 13.
Photo posted on the Facebook group
The Syrian Revolution 2011.

Widespread demonstrations went ahead in several Syrian cities on Friday, May 13, despite the government’s brutal efforts to clamp down on the protest movement. Here is a selection of amateur videos from the demonstrations today.  

Regime opponents had vowed protests would go ahead as usual after Friday’s midday prayers, even though Syrian forces have mounted a sweeping arrest campaign in recent days. Thousands of people took to the streets in the central city of Homs, the southern town of Deraa and the north-eastern Kurdish-majority town of Qamishli, as well as in several smaller towns.  

The Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook group that has been one of the driving forces behind the protests, called for a "Free Women Friday" in support of arrested or killed women demonstrators.              

Despite an order from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad not to shoot protesters, rights activists said that two people were shot dead in Homs when security forces opened fire to break up a demonstration. At least 600 protesters have been killed since the start of the unrest, according to activists.

 KAFR NABL: 

This video was shot in the northern town of Kafr Nable in the Idlib Governorate, on May 13. At the head of the march protesters are brandishing a banner with the logos of FRANCE 24, the BBC and other major news channels. Underneath is the proverb: "He who can see the truth does not turn towards his shadow", and at the very bottom in crooked little letters "Syrian media". 

By this, the protesters mean that international channels are broadcasting the true story of the situation in Syria, and that people should not believe the version of the official Syrian media.

Video posted on YouTube by freesyria2011free.

This video was shot in Homs on May 13. According to one of our contacts in the city, the protesters gathered in front of the great Al Akhyar mosque after prayers. They demonstrated for about two hours, chanting slogans like "Freedom! Freedom!" and "The people want the end of the regime!" before being dispersed by police. Video posted on YouTube by malekali7.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bN-9FfCmGUk

Peaceful marches also took place in the north-eastern town of Qamishli, in Syria’s Kurdish-majority region. Video posted on YouTube by Derikahemko.

 

======================================================

SYRIA Syrian troops open fire, defying presidential order

SYRIA Syria set for more protests

SYRIA Tanks shell residential areas in bid to quell popular revolt



Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

 

 

 

 

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah & ccun.org.

editor@aljazeerah.info & editor@ccun.org