Test Of Wills In Syria As Forces Fire On Crowds In Several Cities
Apr 22, 2011 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Security forces in Syria fired tear gas and live ammunition Friday to disperse crowds of demonstrators who took to the streets of Damascus and other cities after the noon prayers that have been a focus of uprisings across the Arab world, according to protesters, witnesses and accounts posted on social networking sites.
The authorities had deployed police officers, soldiers and military vehicles in two of the country’s three largest cities ahead of a call for nationwide protests testing the popular reception of reforms decreed by President Bashar al-Assad as well as the momentum that organizers have sought to bring to the five-week uprising.
In the restive city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, where major protests erupted earlier in the week, activists said large numbers of security forces and plainclothes officers from the secret police flooded the city, putting up checkpoints and preventing all but a few dozen protesters from gathering.
Abu Kamel al-Dimashki, an activist in Homs reached by Skype, said that 16 of those who were protesting went missing. His account could not be confirmed independently.
“I tried to go there, but I couldn’t,” Mr. Dhimashki said. “The secret police is all over Homs. The sheikh at the mosque told us after the prayers not to protest today because we would have been killed for sure.”
Several thousand protesters demonstrated in Damascus, Baniyas, Qamishli, Hama Amouda and other places, chanting “freedom, freedom and “the people want to topple the regime.” At least three people were wounded when the police opened fire on protesters in Douma, a town on the outskirts of Damascus, activists said.
Mohamad Abdel Rahman, a witness from Homs speaking on Al Jazeera said at least one person was shot dead after he left a mosque in the Khalidiyeh neighborhood.
Earlier, residents described a mobilization in the capital, Damascus, and, in more pronounced fashion, in Homs, where a government crackdown this week dispersed one of the largest gatherings since demonstrations began last month. For days, organizers had looked to Friday as a potential show of strength for a movement that has yet to build the critical mass reached in Egypt and Tunisia.
“Together toward freedom,” read a Facebook page that has served as a pulpit of the uprising, the words posed over symbols of Christianity and Islam. “One heart, one hand, one goal.”
The aim of both sides is the same: to prove they have the upper hand in the biggest challenge yet to the 40-year rule of the Assad family. While organizers were reluctant to call Friday a decisive moment, they acknowledged that it would signal their degree of support in a country that remained divided, with the government still claiming bastions of support among minorities, loyalists of the Baath Party and wealthier segments of the population.
“People are still hesitant,” said Wissam Tarif, the executive director of Insan, a human rights group. But he added, “If it’s not this Friday, it will be the coming Friday.”
Residents of Damascus said police officers were seen heading Thursday from a headquarters on the outskirts in Zabadani toward the capital, where military security officers had reportedly turned out in greater numbers. In the restive city of Dara’a, security forces set up checkpoints on Friday, and other deployments were reported in suburbs of the capital like Duma, Maidamiah and Dariah.
The security presence seemed most pronounced in Homs, residents said, as scores of military vehicles loaded with soldiers and equipment were seen on the highway from Damascus. By morning, thousands of police officers and soldiers had taken up positions around mosques in the city and at the New Clock Square, where protesters had tried to stage an Egyptian-style sit-in on Monday night. Some of the police were in plain clothes and others were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, residents said.
Cellphones were hard to reach in Homs, and some land lines had been cut.
An organizer, Abu Kamel al-Dimashki, said the city was “like a ghost town and we are still mourning our martyrs, so everything is closed.” He said, “Things are a little scary.”
In a sign of the anxiety, some protesters were already predicting violence.
“We know if we’re asking for freedom, we will lose people,” said Salem Abu al-Saud, a protester who fled Homs this week but has remained in contact with people there. “At least in Homs, people are more determined than ever to participate, without fear.”
On Friday, instructions were delivered to protesters from the main Facebook page, urging them to paint revolutionary graffiti, document the protests with pictures and videos, stay peaceful and chant slogans.
The government has maintained that the uprising is led by militant Islamists, and organizers acknowledge that religious forces like the banned Muslim Brotherhood have taken part. The government has also accused foreign countries of supporting the protests. And, indeed, some of the largest have occurred in cities near Syria’s borders: Dara’a, a poor town in southwestern Syria near Jordan, and Homs, an industrial center near conservative northern Lebanon.
The protests nearest Damascus were most likely to rattle the country’s leaders. Both sides understand the significance of the capital: Mass protests there would serve as a devastating blow to the government’s prestige. So far, security forces have managed to block marchers from arriving from the outskirts — a strategy it appears to have adopted in dealing with other cities like Dara’a and Homs, as well.
One protester in Douma described police shooting directly at marchers.
“People were calling for the fall of the government, the end of the Baath Party and freedom,” said the protester, who gave his name as Abu Kassem. “I got scared and left.”
The clashes followed a security buildup around Damascus and in Homs over the preceding day. Residents of Damascus said police officers were seen heading Thursday from a headquarters on the outskirts in Zabadani toward the capital, where military security officers had reportedly turned out in greater numbers. In Dara’a, security forces set up checkpoints on Friday, and other deployments were reported in suburbs of the capital like Douma, Maidamiah and Dariah.
In Homs, cellphones were hard to reach, and some land lines had been cut.
On Friday, instructions were delivered to protesters from the main Facebook page, urging them to paint revolutionary graffiti, document the protests with pictures and videos, stay peaceful and chant slogans. To a remarkable degree they succeeded: in a country closed to most journalists, the Internet was replete with protesters’ account.
The government has maintained that the uprising is led by militant Islamists, and organizers acknowledge that religious forces like the banned Muslim Brotherhood have taken part. The government has also accused foreign countries of supporting the protests. And, indeed, some of the largest have occurred in cities near Syria’s borders: Dara’a, near Jordan, and Homs, an industrial center near conservative northern Lebanon.
On Thursday, Mr. Assad signed decrees that repealed harsh emergency rule, in place since 1963, abolished draconian security courts and granted citizens the right to protest peacefully, though they still need government permission to gather. The orders had already been handed down to his government on Tuesday, making his endorsement a formality; its timing seemed aimed in part at blunting Friday’s protests.
The reforms are at the heart of a debate taking place in Syria, where many fear the prospect of chaos or score-settling in the event of Mr. Assad’s fall. Many activists said the reforms so far were too little and too late; in the words of Haitham Maleh, an oft-imprisoned activist and former judge, “The mentality of the regime has to change.”
