Syria Extends Crackdown on Protesters With Shootings, Wave of Arrests

By Massoud A. Derhally and Mohammed Hatem - May 9, 2011

Security forces in Syria renewed their assault on pro-democracy protesters across the country, shooting at people who joined in demonstrations and seeking to arrest their organizers.

Two people were killed in Deir Al-Zour late yesterday as security forces attacked a protest and at least 12 people died in Homs in the past two days, Mahmoud Merhi, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, said in a phone interview from Syria today. Six people, four of them women, were killed in Banias on May 7, he said. Some 450 people have been arrested in the coastal city in the past two days, said Ammar Qurabi, head of Syria’s National Organization for Human Rights.

The Damascus suburb of al-Muadamiya has been surrounded since 3 a.m. and phones and power cut, signaling a security sweep, Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, a Syrian writer and activist, said in a phone interview. Gunfire was heard in the suburb, Agence France-Presse reported. Security forces are conducting house-to- house raids nationwide seeking protest organizers, the Associated Press said, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The state news agency said six soldiers were killed in operations in Homs, Banias and Daraa, the southern region where protests began in mid-March.

The Syrian uprising drew initial pledges of reform from President Bashar al-Assad that haven’t been repeated in recent weeks as security forces stepped up their attacks, sending tanks into Daraa and other cities. The continuing repression of protests in Syria and Yemen comes after revolts against longtime leaders in Egypt and Tunisia helped spread unrest throughout the Middle East.

Death Toll

More than 650 people have been killed during the Syrian protests, according to Merhi. As many as 10,000 may have been detained, Qurabi said. In Daraa, a curfew is in effect and several mosques have been barred from calling people to prayers, he said.

The country’s authorities are engaged in “a full-scale assault on this uprising in an attempt to cow people into submission,” a tactic that may be modeled on Iran’s repression of protests after 2009 elections, said Chris Phillips, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London. The use of “serious force” has spread from Daraa to other areas, he said.

Syrian Amnesty

Syria’s Interior Ministry said more than 1,000 people involved in protests have admitted their offenses and will escape punishment under an amnesty offered by the government to those who turn themselves in by May 15.

The state news agency said 10 Syrian workers were killed in Homs when their bus was ambushed. It also reported that hundreds of Syrians staged a sit-in at the U.S. embassy in Damascus yesterday to protest what they called American intervention in Syria’s internal affairs.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Syrian government officials because of the violent crackdown on protests.

In Yemen, three protesters were killed early today in the city of Taiz and about 80 sustained gunshot wounds as police fired at an anti-government demonstration, according to Sadek al-Shujaa, head of a field clinic there. At least 100 people have died in Yemen in protests that began in January.

Gulf Plan Spurned

Tens of thousands demonstrated yesterday in Taiz and other cities demanding the immediate ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for three decades. Saleh would quit within a month, with elections to follow two months later, under the terms of an agreement brokered by Gulf Arab countries. Groups leading the street protests have spurned the plan, saying Saleh should quit immediately and shouldn’t be given immunity from prosecution.

Saleh and leaders of the main opposition group initially accepted the Gulf plan, though it hasn’t yet been signed. The government must sign within two days, otherwise the opposition will “halt the political process” and join the protesters in the streets, Mohammed al-Mutawakil, a senior official with the Joint Meetings Party, said in a telephone interview.

In Egypt, where the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak by a popular revolt in February helped spur anti-government protests elsewhere in the region, authorities arrested 23 people suspected of involvement in sectarian fighting between Muslims and Christians in Cairo on May 7 that left 12 people dead. Justice Minister Mohamed El-Gendy promised yesterday to impose the rule of law with an “iron fist.”

In Bahrain, the Youth Society for Human Rights called for an investigation into the deaths and disappearances of demonstrators killed since mid-February, when mostly Shiite Muslim protesters began calling for democracy and human rights in the Sunni-ruled monarchy.

King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa yesterday said the nationwide state of emergency will be lifted on June 1. It was imposed on March 15 after Al Khalifa’s government sent security forces to attack the protesters, killing several, and invited troops from neighboring Saudi Arabia to help keep order.

Source: Bloomberg.
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-08/security-forces-shoot-demonstrators-in-syria-yemen-egypt-clashes-kill-12.html.