"Syria may lift some laws seen as repressive; Following protest deaths, activists vow to press on" by Hussein Malla and Zeina Karam, Associated Press / March 25, 2011
DARAA, Syria — The Syrian government pledged yesterday to consider lifting some of the Mideast’s most repressive laws in an attempt to stop a weeklong uprising in a southern city from spreading and threatening its nearly 50-year rule.
The promises were immediately rejected by many activists who called for demonstrations around the country today in response to a crackdown that protesters say killed dozens of antigovernment marchers in Daraa.
“We will not forget the martyrs of Daraa,’’ a resident said by telephone. “If they think this will silence us they are wrong.’’
The coming days will be a crucial test of the surge of popular discontent that has unseated autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt and threatens to push several others from power.
On one side in Syria stands a regime unafraid of using extreme violence to quash unrest.
On the other side, Israe.... oh, right.
In one infamous example, it leveled entire sections of Hama with artillery and bulldozers to put down an uprising by the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in 1982.
Something Israel does to Palestinians all the time.
Facing the regime is a loosely organized protest movement. The protesters have persisted through seven days of increasing violence by security forces, but have not inspired significant unrest in other parts of the country.
Oh, this IS a CIA COUP ATTEMPT!!!
“Even if the government can contain violence to Daraa for the time being, protests will spread,’’ Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, wrote in a recent blog posting. “The wall of fear has broken.’’
Did I tell you I'm also sick of agenda-pushing Globe insults?
President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Iran and its regional proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, appears worried enough to promise increased freedoms for discontented citizens and increased pay and benefits for state workers — a familiar package of incentives offered by other nervous Arab regimes in recent weeks....
Gee, who would want them gone?
Human rights groups say violations of other basic liberties are rife in Syria, with torture and abuse common in police stations, detention centers, and prisons, and dissenters regularly imprisoned for years without due process....
Just like the guys at Gitmo.
Actually, didn't we even render people to Syria for torture?
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"Syria kills demonstrators as protests grow; After offering concessions, forces open fire" by Michael Slackman, New York Times / March 26, 2011
CAIRO — Military troops opened fire during protests in the southern part of Syria yesterday and killed peaceful demonstrators, according to witnesses and news reports, hurtling the strategically important nation along the same trajectory that has altered the landscape of power across the Arab world.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators in the southern city of Dara’a and in other cities and towns took to the streets in protest, defying a state that has once again demonstrated its willingness to use lethal force....
That's where I stopped reading this particular piece of propaganda.
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Related: Syrian Double Standard
Then I began thinking about what Israeli is currently doing to Gaza (again), and what the U.S. has been doing in Libya the last week (after eight years-plus in Iraq and Afghanistan, with Pakistan getting its share of missile marks as well).
More: Syria gripped by tension, mourning amid new violence (By Michael Slackman and Liam Stack, New York Times)
Article is a total rewrite, and I'm sick of it.
"Syria may ease limits on political freedoms; Emergency law in place since 1963" by Hussein Malla, Associated Press / March 28, 2011
LATAKIA, Syria — In the seaside city of Latakia, gangs of young men, some armed with swords and hunting rifles, roamed through the streets yesterday, closing alleys with barricades and roughly questioning passersby in streets scarred by days of antigovernment unrest.
The scenes were a remarkable display of anarchy in what had been one of the Mideast’s most tightly controlled countries.
The government said 12 people had been shot to death during unrest in Latakia in recent days and blamed the deaths on unidentified gunmen firing from rooftops.
Syria has been rocked by more than a week of demonstrations that began in the drought-parched southern agricultural city of Daraa and exploded nationwide on Friday, with security forces opening fire on demonstrators in at least six places, killing dozens.
A Damascus-based activist said residents of an impoverished hillside neighborhood of the capital known as Mezah-86 reported that government forces were attacking demonstrators there last night.
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"As Syrians awaited a rumored lifting of the country’s long state of emergency, security forces tried again to end unrest. Troops fired tear gas on a crowd of some 4,000 people in Daraa who were calling for more political freedoms, witnesses said. They also fired live ammunition in the air to disperse the crowd.
Armed groups appeared to be threatening an escalation in violence in the country’s main port city of Latakia. Residents were taking up weapons and staffing checkpoints to guard against unknown gunmen roaming the streets carrying sticks and hunting rifles, according to witnesses.
Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, who has wavered between cracking down and compromising, is expected to address the nation as early as today to announce whether he will lift a nearly 50-year state of emergency and move to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms.
The southern city of Daraa — drought-stricken, rural, and impoverished — has become the flashpoint for 10 days of antigovernment protests in a country that has a history of brutally crushing dissent. At least 61 people have been killed since March 18, according to Human Rights Watch. Touched off by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled antigovernment graffiti on a wall in Daraa, the protests exploded nationwide Friday. Security forces launched a swift crackdown, opening fire in at least six locations around the country.
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Also see:
Student from Middlebury College goes missing in Syria
Missing student from Vermont found in Syria
He must be CIA.
