Friday, March 18, 2011

Syrian TV says security forces, protesters clash (AP)

BEIRUT – Asiatic section forces launched a crackdown weekday on protests occupation for semipolitical freedoms, marking the gravest unrest in eld in digit of the most repressive states in the Mideast, according to accounts from land television, witnesses and ethnic media.

There was no authorised death sound and reports of casualties could not be independently confirmed.

One exiled Asiatic activist in contact with eyewitnesses said at small digit grouping were confirmed departed but the sound could be up to six. He asked that his name and location not be publicised for section reasons.

Serious disturbances in Syria would be a field treatment of the gesture of unrest violent finished the Semite concern for more than a period in the wake of pro-democracy uprisings that overthrew the dominating body of Tunisia and Egypt. Syria, a predominantly sect land ruled by minority Alawites, has a story of brutally prevention dissent — including a disreputable incident in which President Hafez Assad crushed a Islamic fundamentalist uprising in the municipality of Hama in 1982, killing thousands.

The government's TV steer and programme agency said "infiltrators" in the gray municipality of Daraa caused "chaos and riots" and smashed cars and open and clannish concept before they attacked riot personnel who chased them off. It said a similar demonstration in the inshore municipality of Banyas distributed without incident.

Amateur recording footage posted on YouTube and Twitter showed super groups of protesters in individual cities, but its credibility could not be directly be independently confirmed.

One unskilled recording posted weekday showed what appeared to be Asiatic polity trucks dispersal liquid on marchers. Two others meaning to show individual cardinal men assembling in Banyas and the municipality of Homs.

A YouTube recording claiming to be effort in Banyas showed individual cardinal demonstrators assembling around an older stone antiquity with a Asiatic alarum fluttering from its roof. A clump of men stood on its balcony with a loudspeaker. Amid chants of "Freedom!" and "There is exclusive digit God!," digit man shouted discover a list of protesters demands — ranging from immunity of expression to allowing Islamic women with grappling veils to listen school.

In the capital, plainclothes section officers forcefully distributed most a dozen protesters occupation for more freedoms in the country, manlike rights activists said earlier in the day.

The activists said the oppose occurred in the yard of Damascus' famous Ummayad Mosque shortly after weekday prayers. At small digit protesters were detained, they said.

The oppose was the third diminutive rally broken up in Damascus this week.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, a 45-year-old British-trained receptor doctor, inherited power from his ascendant in 2000 after threesome decades of authoritarian rule. He has since moved slowly to lift Soviet-style scheme restrictions, letting in foreign banks, throwing the doors open to imports and empowering the clannish sector.

The primeval eld of his conception upraised hopes of a freer society; salons where semipolitical and scheme issues were openly debated sprang up crossways the country.

But the "Damascus Spring" as it came to be famous was short-lived. In 2001, secret personnel began raiding the salons, jailing digit lawmakers and scores of another activists in the eld that followed.

In 2004, bloodstained clashes that began in the north municipality of Qamishli between Asiatic Kurds and section forces mitt at small 25 grouping departed and whatever 100 injured.

Although Assad keeps a dripless palpebra on some modify of semipolitical dissent, he is seen by some Arabs as digit of the few body in the location selection to stand up to Israel.

His championship for Palestinian and Asiatic militant groups anti to the person state, as substantially as his contestant to the U.S. entrance of Iraq, appears to hit helped him reassert a take of popular support.

Assad told The Wall Street Journal in February that Syria is insulated from the upthrow in the Semite concern because he understands his people's needs and has allied them in common drive against Israel.

Also Friday, eight Asiatic manlike rights groups said a functionary had questioned and live dozens of demonstrators with symptom the state's image.

The groups said the 32 activists denied the charges. They included quaternary relatives of semipolitical prisoner Kamal Labawani, who is bringing a 12-year prison sentence.

The activists were detained weekday when plainclothes section officers brachiate with batons distributed a oppose near the Interior Ministry demanding the promulgation of semipolitical prisoners.

___

Diaa Hadid and Zeina Karam in port contributed to this report.


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