Monday, March 21, 2011

DARAA, Syria: Police fired live ammunition and tear gas Sunday at thousands of Syrians protesting in a tense southern city for a third consecutive day, killing one person and signaling that unrest in yet another Arab country is taking root, activists said.

Protesters in the city of Daraa, some 100 kilometers south of Damascus, set fire to the headquarters of the ruling Baath Party, rights activists said.
The protesters also set ablaze the main courts complex and two phone company branches. One of the firms, Syriatel, is owned by President Bashar Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf.

“They burned the symbols of oppression and corruption,” an activist said. “The banks nearby were not touched.”
Thousands rallied to demand an end to 48 years of emergency law in the southern city. “No, no to the emergency law. We are a people infatuated with freedom,” marchers chanted.

“A protester was killed today by live bullets. His name is Raed Akrad,” the activist said, adding that more than 100 people had been wounded, including two in critical condition.
Security forces backed by plain-clothes police fired live bullets and tear gas at “more than 10,000 demonstrators,” he said. Soldiers ringed the town but did not intervene.

A Syrian official denied the reported death, accusing “troublemakers” of  fuelling unrest as Cabinet ministers, dispatched by the president, visited Daraa to pay condolences for two protesters killed in violence Friday.
A rights activist at the scene said the town had turned into a “volcano” and anger flared further after the Cabinet ministers arrived to pay their respects.

The protest erupted in the afternoon, but anger swelled later when Local Administration Minister Tamer al-Hijjeh and Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Miqdad arrived to pay condolences to families of two youths killed Friday.

Rights groups have said that four protesters were killed Friday, and two were buried Saturday in Daraa.

Assad “has given clear instructions that necessary measures should be taken to sanction the culprits,” Hijjeh said, according to the official SANA news agency. Syrian authorities announced Saturday that a commission had been created to probe the “regrettable” violence in Daraa.
Protesters seethed when they saw the ministers and demonstrators cried out: “He who strikes his own people is a traitor,” the activist said.

A group of town elders handed the delegation a set of demands – namely the lifting of the 1963 emergency law, the release of political prisoners and the sacking of Daraa Governor Faisal Kalthum, another activist said.
The protest began in the afternoon – before the officials arrived – with a march setting off from the Omari mosque, which became a makeshift

“field hospital” where casualties were taken, one activist said.
Activists said an unspecified number of people were arrested, including young boys. But in a bid to placate tempers, the authorities released 15 schoolchildren who had been detained for spraying anti-regime graffiti on buildings in Daraa, activists said. Security forces arrested dozens of protesters in Daraa Saturday, where thousands of people attended the funerals of Akram al-Jawabra and Hussam Abdelwali Ayash, two of the four victims from Friday.

Inspired by popular protests for reform and democracy in Tunisia and Egypt, calls for protests in Syria have been launched on Facebook pages. Impromptu rallies have erupted since Tuesday when relatives of political prisoners held a protest near the Interior Ministry in Damascus calling for their release. Protests were also held in the coastal city of Banias and in Homs, north of Damascus. – Agencies