Wednesday, April 06, 2011

NICOSIA: Syria was bracing Tuesday for a series of demonstrations organized by a Facebook group to mark “Martyrs Week” as the southern town of Daraa held a general strike.
Also Tuesday, two Syrian policemen were shot dead by unidentified gunmen near Damascus, state television said.
The policemen were carrying out a “normal patrol” when the gunmen fired on them in the area of Kfar Batna, the television channel said, without giving further details.

The area is near the Damascus suburb of Douma, where security forces Friday shot dead at least eight protesters who took part in a large demonstration demanding political freedoms and an end to corruption.
It was not clear if the shooting in Kfar Batna, about 15 kilometers from Damascus, was connected to the recent unrest. President Bashar Assad has blamed the recent bloodshed on gangs and a foreign conspiracy to sow chaos in Syria.

“Martyrs Week” is a series of rallies in honor of those killed in security crackdowns on anti-regime demonstrations and is organized by a group calling itself Syrian Revolution 2011.

“We announced [the protests] as peaceful and insist on that,” said a spokesman for the group, which has garnered more than 100,000 supporters online and proved a persistent motor of anti-regime rallies.
“The Week of the Martyrs will be a thorn in the regime’s side,” said the organizers who designated Tartus and Latakia, two coastal towns “far from the capital” as Tuesday’s protest centers.

The group also called for a boycott of cellphone companies Wednesday, a rally against the ruling Baath party Thursday outside its Damascus headquarters, and countrywide demonstrations Friday.
From Daraa, a rights activist told AFP on condition of anonymity: “The general strike was largely observed.” Activists had distributed leaflets urging shops to remain closed, he added.

He said security forces fired warning shots Monday night trying “in vain” to disperse a sit-in outside the Al-Omari mosque, the focal point of three weeks of anti-government protests marred by deadly violence.

The strike came a day after Assad appointed a new governor to the restive agricultural town, one of the main flashpoints of an opposition movement that erupted on March 15.

The move was dismissed as not enough by Syrian human rights activists because “the residents of Daraa want more than a switch in governor.”
“They want the security services to stop oppressing them, the emergency law lifted, property rights respected, the detained freed and freedom of expression guaranteed,” an activist told AFP.

Syrian rights activists estimate more than 130 people have been killed in clashes with security forces, mainly in Daraa and Latakia, since the start of political unrest.
Officials have put the death toll at closer to 30 and blamed the violence on “armed” groups and foreign interference seeking to divide the ethnically and religiously diverse country.

“The way the authorities are behaving indicates that they are not getting the message of non-violence,” freed Syrian activist Suhair al-Atassi told Reuters in an interview, citing pro-Assad rallies organized by the government last week.
Secret police arrested Atassi in Marjeh Square at a silent protest on March 16 for the release of political prisoners including lawyer Anwar al-Bunni and writer Ali Abdallah, and 15 children arrested in the city of Daraa for writing slogans on walls inspired by the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions.

Syrian authorities have promised to end the state of emergency without specifying when but daily newspaper Al-Watan, which is close to power, has said “new legislation” to replace emergency rule would be ready by Friday.
Also Tuesday, a Syrian lawyer and human rights activist said authorities have released seven people arrested last month in a different part of Syria.

Khalil Matouk said among those released are two Kurds detained on March 12 and two activists who were among 32 detained during a March 16 sit-in outside the Interior Ministry.
Only one prisoner from the group of 32, Kamal Sheikho, remains in custody. – Agencies