BEIRUT/AMMAN: Three months into Syria’s bloody political showdown, some 200 critics of President Bashar Assad’s rule prepared to convene in an unprecedented opposition gathering today in Damascus, after another deadly weekend for anti-government protesters.
Activists reported Sunday that Syrian forces opened fire when funerals for slain demonstrators in a Damascus suburb turned into protests on Saturday. Two people were killed, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He said one person was also killed in Damascus’ Barzeh neighborhood during protests, and two were killed in the village of Qusair, near the Lebanese border. This followed what activists said were the killings of 20 people during demonstrations Friday across Syria, including two children aged 12 and 13.
Writer Louay Hussein, a high-profile opposition activist attending the meeting, said the aim was “to discuss the situation that is threatening the country and move in a safe and peaceful way into a democratic and civic state that achieves equality and justice for all citizens without discrimination.”

They’ll meet under the slogan, “All for Syria within a civil and democratic state.” He said Syrian authorities were informed of the meeting and had not blocked it. There would be no government representation, he said.
“There is no one officially from the regime or from the opposition, but the intelligentsia have a duty to meet and call for an end to military repression, release of political prisoners and establishment of political freedoms,” opposition figure Aref Dalila told Reuters by telephone from Damascus.

“Most participants are demanding in total seriousness a move to a democratic system,” said Dalila, a leading economist who was jailed for eight years after criticizing a telecoms contract awarded to a cousin of Assad.
Dalila and Hussein were both among a group of four activists who met an Assad adviser two months ago to discuss a national dialogue. After that meeting the four said no dialogue could be held while protesters continued to be killed and security forces were arresting and torturing Syrians in their thousands.

An activists’ group called the Coordination Union of the Syrian Revolt denounced the conference as an attempt to “bestow legitimacy” on the regime. In Istanbul, where 150 Syrian youth activists concluded a two-day opposition conference on Sunday, delegates also criticized the planned meeting.

“We respect the past of people like Mr. Dalila and Mr. Hussein, but the fact the conference will go ahead while killings continue is a whitewash for the regime. Whatever they decide will have no bearing for protesters on the ground,” said Iyad Qarqour, an activist elected to the executive committee.

Another participant, well-known Syrian writer Michel Kilo, who spent years in Syrian prisons for his criticism of the state said those meeting Monday have “their own choices and positions” for ways of moving Syria to democracy. He said no one from outside the country had been invited, and participants belong to no political faction.

In a nationally televised speech June 20, Assad said he was forming a committee to study constitutional amendments, including one that would open the way to political parties other than the ruling Baath Party.
Two days later, his foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, called for opponents to enter into political talks.
Some prominent dissidents rejected such overtures, however, citing what they said was previous Assad talk of reform that produced no political change.

The opposition says some 1,400 people have been killed – most of them unarmed protesters – during the government crackdown on months of street protests.
The regime disputes that figure, however, and says security forces have been the victims of “armed thugs” and foreign conspirators it says are behind the unrest.
Syria’s military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Riad Haddad, told the Associated Press Sunday that 300 soldiers and 47 police officers have been killed.

His statement, like the reports by anti-regime activists, could not be independently verified, since Damascus has banned most foreign reporters from Syria and put restrictions on local journalists’ reporting.
The unrest has sent thousands of Syrians fleeing into neighboring Turkey and Lebanon. As of Sunday morning, more than 11,450 Syrian refugees were sheltered in Turkey, officials there said.