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Syrian Troops Open Fire Amid Biggest Protests Yet

Last updated (GMT/UTC): 22.04.2011 14:41

Syria's five-week-old political uprising has spilled over into further death and bloodshed after security forces reportedly opened fire on protesters demanding the end of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Reports said at least 27 people were killed, with AP reporting witnesses saying they had seen corpses at Hamdan hospital in the capital, Damascus. Initial dispatches had reported five wounded when troops fired on demonstrators in Douma, near the capital, where an estimated 40,000 people were said to have gathered.

Another seven people were reported to have been wounded by gunfire in the city of Homs, where several violent clashes have occurred in recent days.

The reports could not be verified because international journalists have been expelled from Syria.

The deadly crackdown came a day after Assad introduced concessions meant to quell the tide of discontent against his rule but which opponents derided as inadequate.

They included the end to a notorious state of emergency that has existed for nearly half a century and also conceded people's right to seek permission to stage peaceful protests. Human rights groups had said the government's response to the April 22 gatherings would be a test of the reforms' authenticity.

Indeed, with fresh simultaneous protests being reported in more than a half-dozen cities and towns, it appeared that the concessions had failed to pacify the regime's opponents but, instead, had served to embolden them.

In Jasim, a city in the governerate of Daraa in the south of the country, a large crowd carrying Syrian banners chanted antigovernment slogans, including, "The people want to overthrow the regime."

Similar gatherings were reported in the city of Daraa as well as in Latakia, Banias, Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, and the Damascus suburbs of Zabadani and Midan.

There were also reports of protests in at least four towns in the mainly Kurdish northeast. Assad recently sought to address Kurdish grievances by granting citizenship to around 300,000 Kurds who had previously been officially stateless.

The latest clashes followed reports of heavy security-force deployment overnight as the authorities prepared to meet the opposition's call for a nationwide day of protest.

At least 220 people have been killed, according to human rights groups, in five weeks of demonstrations against what is considered one of the Middle East's most autocratic states.

Assad had prefaced his reforms by declaring last week that there would be no more "excuse" for demonstrations once the state of emergency had been lifted, a central demand of the protests.

However, opponents signaled that this was no longer sufficient. Ahead of the April 22 gatherings, an umbrella group representing the protesters issued a statement demanding a "rapid reformulation of our national institutions."

The statement -- issued in the name of "Syrian local organizing committees" -- demanded an end to torture, killings, arrest, and violence against demonstrators as well as three days of state-sanctioned mourning for those killed so far. It also called for the release of all political prisoners and an independent inquiry into the death of protesters.

Most radical of all, it called for drastic constitutional reform that would limit presidents to two terms. Assad has been president for 11 years, having inherited the post on the death in 2000 of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria for the previous 30 years.

written by Robert Tait, based on agency reports

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/thousands_demonstrate_cities_syria/9502385.html

Copyright (c) 2011. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.