by Rim Haddad

Mon Mar 21, 2011

DARAA, Syria (AFP) – Thousands braved Syria's security forces to march in the southern town of Daraa for a fourth straight day Monday, as protests spread to nearby towns and a boy died of tear gas inhalation.
Rights activists and witnesses said Monday's protest in Daraa began after the funeral of a protester killed there the previous day.

"There was a massive deployment of security forces (in Daraa) to block protests but thousands gathered anyway," a witness told AFP, adding they used tear gas to break up the crowd and "arrested several people" on the fourth day of unrest.

Daraa has become the unexpected nerve centre of anti-regime protests in Syria, with protesters holding daily demonstrations since Friday despite a huge deployment of security forces and a heavy-handed crackdown on protests that have left six dead.

A mass of demonstrators marched on Monday from the cemetery towards Al-Omari mosque after the burial of Raed Akrad, who was killed by security forces on Sunday when they opened fire to disperse a protest.
"Just God, Syria and Freedom," and "Revolution, revolution" chanted the demonstrators, and an activist told AFP that they would keep up their protests "until all the demands were met."

The protesters, who have been inspired by regime-changing revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, are demanding "freedom" and an end to 48 years of emergency laws in Syria under President Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez.
Hundreds of demonstrators on Sunday set Daraa's courthouse as well as other buildings and a car ablaze, following clashes with police in which one person was killed and 100 wounded.

On Monday, a young boy caught up in Sunday's protests died of tear gas inhalation, becoming the second casualty of the day and the sixth since Friday, a human rights activist said.
"Munze Mumen al-Masalmah, an 11-year-old suffering from tear gas inhalation at a demonstration yesterday (Sunday), died today," the activist told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Sunday's incident ignited supporting protests on Monday in Daraa's neighbouring towns.

In Enkhel, protesters stormed a police station and in Jasim about 2,000 demonstrators chanted "peaceful, peaceful" and "Martyr, we will sacrifice ourselves for you," according to an AFP correspondent.
The United States on Monday urged Damascus to exercise restraint against the anti-government demonstrators as it renewed its condemnation of the Syrian government's violent crackdown.

"We condemn the violence by the Syrian government that caused the deaths and injuries of individuals that protested in Syria... over the past week," Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, told reporters in Washington.
"We call on the Syrian government to exercise restraint and refrain from violence against these... protesters," he said.

As popular uprisings rock the Middle East and rooted regimes unravel, Syria has shown zero tolerance for protests with the army showing up in Daraa on Monday and soldiers checking the ID cards of anyone who entered the town.
Human rights groups said on Monday Syrian security forces had unleashed a wave of "arbitrary detentions" and "excessive force" in several cities where anti-regime protests flared in recent days.

"Eleven people were detained Friday after a demonstration outside the Omayyed mosque in Damascus, and several others were arrested in the port city of Banias," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
On Saturday, security forces arrested "dozens of protesters" in Daraa, where thousands attended the funerals of two of four people killed on the previous day's violent crackdown, a rights activist said.

The protests followed a call for a "Day of Dignity" across Syrian cities from a Facebook group that has emerged as a major mobilising force since March 15, although previous rallying efforts had fallen flat.
As in Egypt, tough security services -- empowered by emergency laws -- have become a mobilising force with one of the first impromptu protests sparked by police brutality in the capital's Old City in mid-February.