BEIRUT/DAMASCUS: Syrian troops opened fire Wednesday on scores of people in a Damascus suburb, killing at least eight people who were trying to halt the soldiers’ advance by throwing stones and burning tires, activists said.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the residents of the Kanaker suburb were trying to set up blockades around the area to stop several tanks and a bulldozer that were heading in.

The group said the raid wounded a number of people who were being treated in mosques that residents had turned into makeshift hospitals. It said the raid occurred after electricity and telephones were cut off in the area.
The Observatory cited its wide network of witnesses on the ground in Syria. The government has banned most foreign media and restricted coverage, making it difficult to independently confirm witness accounts.

Ammar Qurabi, who heads the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, put the death toll higher, at 11.
Elsewhere the head of another rights advocacy group, Abdel Karim Rihawi, reported that around 300 people were arrested Monday and Tuesday in Sayyeda Zeinab, a district just south of Damascus, home to a revered Shiite shrine.

The shrine, considered a favorite among Shiite Muslim pilgrims, is dedicated to Zeinab, the granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad and daughter of Imam Ali, the most revered figure of Shiite Muslims.
Rihawi, who heads the Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights, said “security forces continue [Wednesday] to conduct arrests in Barzeh and in Zabadani,” just outside the capital.

The Observatory said “several military vehicles” headed to Zabadani, which has been rocked by anti-regime protests and arrests in the past two days.
Meanwhile, a rights activists reporting from Aleppo said “hundreds of lawyers” staged a sit-in in Syria’s second city and economy hub Wednesday chanting “freedom, freedom.”

The demonstrations were the latest development in the Syrian uprising against President Bashar Assad, which has lasted for nearly five months despite a brutal government crackdown on dissent.
Assad’s forces have killed at least 1,486 civilians since the anti-regime uprising began in mid-March, according to rights groups.

Some organizations say at least 12,000 people have been detained but it is unclear how many are still being held and how many have been released.
Although Assad’s government is blaming the unrest on terrorists and foreign extremists – not true reform-seekers – the president has acknowledged the need for reforms.
Late Tuesday, the Cabinet endorsed draft legislation that would enable newly formed political parties to run for parliament and local councils, a human rights group said.

The ruling Baath party, which calls for “unity, freedom and socialism,” has held a monopoly over political life in Syria for decades. The government endorsed a draft law Monday, that it says will allow the formation of political parties alongside the Baath party – something that had been a key demand of the protest movement.
Still, the promises are not likely to appease protesters. Assad, who inherited power in 2000 after the death of his father, President Hafez Assad, has made a series of overtures but the protests have grown larger.

Although the uprising began in mid-March with calls for reform, the steadily climbing death toll and slow pace of reform has enraged the protest movement. Now, many of them say they won’t accept anything short of Assad’s ouster.
Some 200 youth opposition figures met for a four-day meeting in Istanbul Wednesday, hoping to improve coordination among the groups working to topple Bashar Assad.

The group that includes Syrians living in the country, as well as in the United States, Europe and Saudi Arabia, are united in “trying to bring together the new Syria,” said Banah Ghadbian, a 17-year-old Syrian-American. “The goal is to get the activists together, put together a strategy for coordination,” said Moaaz Sibaai, an organizer. The meeting at a hotel in an Istanbul suburb opened with participants singing the Syrian national anthem, followed by a video clip set to rap music that denounced the “lies” spread by the Damascus State.
Imaddin Rachid, a leader of the Syrian protest movement, urged young activists “to build a civil society that transcends ideological, religious and ethnic divides.”

Anti-regime activists will learn how to use technology to communicate safely and anonymously, particularly with protesters living in Syria, Sibaai said.
Roughly 80 percent of those at the meeting live outside the country.
Instruction in how to accurately document human rights abuses and lobby international rights groups is also on the docket.

While the activists want to improve tactics to combat a government that has proved willing to brutalize its opponents, Ghadbian said its equally important to be ready for the day the state falls.
“We are trying to train ourselves and be prepared for what happens after the revolution,” said Ghadbian, a native of the U.S. state of Arkansas.
“I don’t want to be part of the paranoia and fear the regime has put its civilians under. My objective is to go back and live in a free Syria,” he said