THU 28 - 3 - 2024
 
Date: Jun 16, 2011
Source: The Daily Star
Assad regime takes journalists on media tour

JISR AL-SHUGHOUR, Syria: Syrian authorities launched a media offensive Wednesday in the face of a mounting outcry over its deadly crackdown on dissent, taking journalists on an escorted tour of a key protest hub and staging a loyalist rally.
Government minders showed a group of 20 journalists, including an AFP correspondent, a grave containing at least five corpses, near the flashpoint northern town of Jisr al-Shughour.
The remains, which lay under a pile of rubbish, had been placed in yellow and orange body bags.
Bulldozers surrounded what state television identified as “a new mass grave,” unearthed after the army took control of the town Sunday.


The official SANA news agency reported Sunday that a mass grave containing the bodies of security agents had been found in Jisr al-Shughour.
“Armed groups had mutilated the corpses which were removed from the mass grave,” SANA added, without specifying the number of bodies found.


Human rights activists say those killed are unarmed protesters and deny government reports of a massacre in Jisr al-Shughour, saying bloodshed erupted during a mutiny by soldiers who refused to fire on the town’s residents.
Members of the press were introduced to a man who identified himself as a “gunman who participated in a massacre at police headquarters” and said the victims were killed by “armed men” on June 6.
Jisr al-Shughour has been the focus of military operations since Friday.
Syrian troops seized the town Sunday after battling with “armed gangs” in Jisr al-Shughour and “purging” the state hospital of armed groups, state television reported.


The media offensive by the government came as it faced mounting diplomatic pressure to halt its crackdown on three months of protests that have swept through much of the country.
Neighboring Turkey, which cultivated close ties with Syria over the past decade, has toughened its tone against Assad’s government with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week accusing it of perpetrating an “atrocity” against demonstrators.


Erdogan met for nearly three hours with Assad envoy Hassan Turkmani Wednesday in an apparent fresh effort to press Damascus to initiate reform and end the turmoil.
No statement was made after the Ankara talks.
The army assault on Jisr al-Shughour and other towns and villages in Idlib province has sent thousands of people fleeing over the border into Turkey.
Witnesses said security forces were preventing residents from leaving the province, and reported they were shooting at people who attempted to avoid military checkpoints.


Protesters have described the operation in the northern mountains as a scorched-earth campaign, while Syrian soldiers who deserted to Turkey have alleged they were forced to commit atrocities there.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu traveled to the border region to monitor firsthand the humanitarian operation under way.
He was seen visiting tents and chatting with refugees as he toured a fenced camp in Yayladagi town, kept off limits to the media. 

 



 
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