'Syrian security forces fire on protesters: 23 dead'
By REUTERS
LAST UPDATED: 03/25/2011 20:52
Gunfire heard in Deraa; 3 reportedly killed in Damascus; demonstrations spread; Syrian information minister says situation "completely calm."
DAMASCUS/DERAA,
Syria - Protests spread across Syria on Friday, challenging the rule of
the Assad family after their forces killed dozens of demonstrators in
the south.
In the southern city of Deraa, which has been in
revolt for a week, gunfire and tear gas scattered a crowd of thousands
after people lit a fire under a statue of late president Hafez al-Assad,
whose son Bashar has ruled since his death in 2000.
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Al Jazeera aired comments by a man who said security forces had killed 20 people on Friday in the nearby town of Sanamein.
In
the Mouadamieh district of Damascus, security forces killed three
people after a crowd confronted a procession of cars driven by
supporters of President Bashsar al-Assad, residents said.
Meanwhile, the Syrian information minister said the situation in the country is calm, al-Arabiya television reported.
"The situation is completely calm in all parts of the country, the television station quoted Information Minister Muhsin Bilal as saying.
It was not clear when he was speaking.
The United States also weighed in on the situation in Syria, calling on the Syrian government to stop violence against demonstrators and the arrests of human rights activists, White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Friday.
"We strongly condemn the Syrian government's attempts to repress and intimidate demonstrators," he told reporters.
In Hama, in the center of the country, where the elder Assad put down an
Islamist revolt in 1982 at a cost of many thousands of lives, residents
said people streamed through the streets after weekly prayers chanting
"Freedom is ringing out!" -- a slogan heard in uprisings sweeping the
rest of the Arab world.
The same chant had earlier marked funeral processions in Deraa for some
of the at least 37 people killed on Wednesday, when security agents
attacked pro-democracy groups at a mosque. In all, 44 deaths have been
reported in the past week in Deraa.
Security men, on alert across the country during weekly prayers at
mosques, quickly stifled a small demonstration in the capital Damascus.
They hauled away dozens among a crowd of some 200 who chanted their
support for people of Deraa.
In Tel, near Damascus, about 1,000 people rallied and chanted slogans calling relatives of Assad "thieves".
Deraa violence
In Deraa itself, a bastion of the Sunni majority which resents the power
and wealth amassed by the Alawite elite around Assad, a Reuters
correspondent saw thousands rally unchallenged until the sound of heavy
gunfire sent them running for cover.
Unrest in Deraa came to a head this week after police detained more than
a dozen schoolchildren for writing graffiti against the government. In
Damascus, a couple of protests by a few dozen people shouting slogans
were broken up last week.
Among the targets of the crowd's anger on Friday was Maher al-Assad, a
brother of the president and head of the Republican Guard, a special
security force, and Rami Makhlouf, a cousin who runs big businesses and
is accused by Washington of corruption.
Allied with Shi'ite, non-Arab Iran against the Western powers and
neighboring Israel, Assad's Syria sits at the heart of a complex web of
conflict in the Middle East.
His anti-Israel stance has protected him against some of the criticism
aimed, for example, at Egypt's deposed leader Hosni Mubarak, who
defended a peace treaty with the Jewish state.
Demonstrators in Deraa turned that hostility to Israel against the
government on Friday, highlighting the use of force against them and the
failure of the Assads to take back the Golan Heights.
"Maher, you coward!" they chanted. "Send your troops to liberate the Golan!"
In Deraa, before the Friday midday prayers which are the high point of
social interaction in much of the Arab world, a procession of cars
coursed through the streets honking horns and raising pictures of the
president. There were also pro-Assad congregations in other parts of the
city.
Minarets in Deraa echoed throughout the morning with the calls of imams
to the faithful to attend funerals of some of the civilians killed, most
of them when security forces fired on demonstrators in the mainly Sunni
Muslim city on Wednesday.
A Facebook page called Syrian Revolution called on people to gather on
the "Friday of Dignity" after prayers, "in all mosques, in all
provinces, in the biggest squares".
Bashar al-Assad promised on Thursday to look into granting Syrians
greater freedoms in an attempt to defuse the outbreak of popular demands
for political freedoms and an end to corruption.
He also pledged to look at ending an emergency law in place since 1963 and made an offer of large public pay rises.
Syrian security forces pulled out on Thursday from the mosque where
several people were killed. People later converged on the mosque to
celebrate its "liberation", setting off fireworks and honking car horns.