Al Jazeera English: Protesters 'killed' in Syrian town

Crackdown in Rastan continues, as opposition conference ends with declaration demanding Syrian president's resignation.

Syrian security forces have killed at least 13 civilians in the latest crackdown on pro-democracy protests, rights groups say, as opposition leaders meeting in Turkey called for president Bashar al-Assad to step down and lay the framework for democratic elections to be held within a year.

Security forces, backed by tanks, have laid siege to the central town of Rastan since Sunday in an effort to crush protests against Assad's rule there.

The 13 civilians were killed by gunfire from snipers and security forces storming Rastan, which is under curfew, said Ammar Qurabi, the head of the Syrian Organisation for Human Rights, and Razan Zaitouna, a lawyer.

Earlier, Zaitouna said that 41 people had been killed in the town, including a four-year-old girl who was killed as security forces shelled neighbourhoods on Tuesday.

Five of the victims were buried in Rastan on Wednesday, she said. Syrian forces also killed nine civilians on Tuesday in the town of Hirak, according to Qurabi.

Syrian state media reported that four soldiers were killed by "armed terrorist groups" in Rastan on Wednesday were buried on Thursday.

"We have become refugees in our own country,'' a resident of Rastan told the AP news agency. He said that he had fled his home in the centre of the town to escape arrest and was now sleeping in the woods.

"My family and sisters are still there, and I don't know how they are doing,'' he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Call for Assad's exit

At the conference in the Turkish city of Antalya, Syrian opposition activists called for Assad to resign immediately and cede powers to his vice-president.

"The delegates have committed to the demands of the Syrian people to bring down the regime and support the people's revolution for freedom and dignity," said a communique issued by 300 delegates at the conclusion of the two-day meeting, which brought together various opposition groups, activists and
independent figures, some from inside Syria.

The opposition also decided to establish a 31-member council to act as an international representative for protesters in Syria, reported Mohamed Vall, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Antalya.

Abrahim Miro, a Syrian activist of Kurdish ethnicity who was at the conference, said the committee "is represented by all the factions, all different ethnic groups and all different religions", adding that "it must show the world that they can make a strong voice to support the revolution inside Syria".

"They have to show the world that they are capable of being the face of this revolution in Syria," he told Al Jazeera.

The communique issued by the conference attendees also opposed any foreign intervention in Syria from outside powers, such as has been seen in Libya.

About 50 Assad supporters demonstrated outside the conference venue on Thursday, brandishing posters of the Syrian president and branding the opposition as being "on the payroll of the United States and Israel".

'National dialogue'

President Assad has recently launched a "national dialogue", pledging to free hundreds of political prisoners and promising to investigate the killing of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb in an attempt to blunt growing anger.

State television said Assad had set up a committee and charged it with "formulating general principles of dialogue that will open the way for the creation of an appropriate climate in which the different elements can express themselves and present their proposals".

The opposition has previously dismissed calls for dialogue, saying that this can take place only once the violence ends, political prisoners are freed and reforms adopted.

The demand that prisoners be freed was partially met on Wednesday when, according to a rights activist, hundreds of detainees were released from prisons across the country under an amnesty declared by Assad on Tuesday.

Washington, which has been increasing pressure by slapping sanctions on key regime members, said the release of "100 or so political prisoners does not go far enough".

"The release of some political prisoners is not the release of all political prisoners. We need to see all political prisoners released," Mark Toner, the US state department deputy spokesman, told reporters.

Amnesty exclusions

Human rights organisations have echoed this sentiment.

Al Jazeera's Mohamed Vall reports from Antalya

"Hundreds of people have been released," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.

"Fifty of them are from Baniyas, including the 76-year-old poet Ali Derbak," he added, but "thousands of political prisoners remain in jail and are to be released at any time".

"Leaders of the communist Labour Party were unable to benefit from the amnesty as the decree excluded people convicted of joining an organisation to change the social and economic status of the state," Rahman said.

More than 1,100 civilians have been killed and at least 10,000 arrested since protests against Assad's autocratic government erupted in mid-March, Human Rights Watch said.

Speakers at the Turkey conference said Assad's amnesty offer did not go far enough and came too late. "We demanded this amnesty several years ago," Abdel Razak Eid, an activist from the Damascus Declaration, a reformist group launched in 2005 to demand democratic change, said. "But it's late in coming."

A mobile video by one of the delegates showed the delegates vowing not to end dialogue until Syria's people were free.

Assad's legitimacy 'nearly out'

Other international responses to the presidential decree were tepid at best, though US secretary of state Hillary Clinton did say on Thursday that her country believed that Assad's legitimacy has "nearly run out".

Clinton also indicated that there was a lack of international consensus on how to move forward in order to appear on "the right side of history".

Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, has demanded "more ambitious and bolder" action from Syria. "I fear that it might already be too late," he told France Culture radio.

Turkey, while not dismissing the decree outright, also asked for deeper change.

Meanwhile in Syria, residents called for nationwide protests to take place on Friday, to commemorate the nearly 30 children killed during the uprising.

Syria has denied that a boy aged 13, whom opposition activists say died under torture, had been abused by security forces, labelling the accusations as lies.

A medical report published by Syrian official media said three bullets killed teenager Hamza al-Khatib and that other apparent wounds on his body were due to decomposition, not security force brutality.

Coroner Akram al-Shaar indicated that there was a period between the initial inspection and the handover of the corpse which was presided over by a legal commission including the judge.

"The report closes the door on the lies and allegations and shows the truth," the state-run news agency SANA said.

The activists said the boy had disappeared since taking part in a demonstration in the southern region of Daraa on April 29, which he decided to join after police killed his cousin.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has said that at least 30 children have been killed by gunfire since the revolt began. The government insists the unrest is the work of "armed terrorist gangs" backed by foreign agitators.

Original post: Protesters 'killed' in Syrian town

Tabbara in Al Jazeera: Syria: Dissolving illusions of reform

As sporadic protests were sparked in the city of Daraa in Syria last month, many experts and commentators in the region were quick to dismiss a Syrian uprising. After all, Syria's young "reformer" president, Bashar Al-Assad, enjoyed a healthy measure of popularity and an even healthier measure of control.


Yet events on the ground have proven the contrary. In the city of Homs, a reported ten-thousand protesters (some say more) took to the streets and occupied Clock-Tower Square in the centre of town. Reminiscent of the images from Cairo's Tahrir Square, Syrian protesters pitched tents and declared their intention to stay and demonstrate, with some chanting, "a sit in, a sit-in, until the government falls!"


The unparallelled events that took place in Homs in the past few days have demonstrated the serious threat to the Assad regime. More importantly, the large numbers of Syrians who came out to demonstrate in the country's third-largest city have broken a threshold that many doubted could ever be amassed in Syria.


Today, Syrians from Damascus to Aleppo have seen evidence that the demonstrations have indeed reached a critical mass. Tens, if not hundreds, of YouTube videos confirm the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of the protesters in Homs. They also document the terrible moment when the regime's forces opened live fire on defenceless protesters.


Assad's infamous March 30 speech - or speech No. 1, as sarcastically dubbed by activists on Twitter - tested the loyalty of free-thinking Syrians to Assad.


Many who believed that the young president might in fact turn out to be a potential reformer, watched flabbergasted as the president warned the nation that anyone on the streets expressing any kind of dissent - albeit peaceful and moderate - is a traitor, a foreign agent or an Islamist with a puritan agenda to destroy Syria.


With this speech, Bashar metaphorically shot himself in the foot, and consequently lost much of his base. More demonstrators took to the streets in defiance.


Speech No. 2, more unrest


Assad then gives speech No. 2 a few days ago. In a subtle attempt to emphasise his supposed position of power, and his self-perceived popularity, he avoids addressing the Syrian people directly and instead lectures his newly appointed cabinet on national TV.


He ironically directs the cabinet to be more responsive to the demands of Syrian citizens, and asks the cabinet to set a concrete time line for ending 50-year-old emergency laws in the country. Once again, missing the mark by about two weeks, Assad attempts to make "concessions," that are too little too late. This speech, once again, fails to placate the quickly escalating demands of the rapidly maturing revolution.


On Tuesday, the government announced that the emergency law in the country was finally revoked. With the same breath, the interior minister threatened that though the emergency law - which had previously outlawed demonstrations - was no longer in effect, demonstrators who still insisted on protesting would be severely punished.


In a demonstration of the brutality of the regime, just hours before the emergency law was lifted, the peaceful sit-in of thousands of protesters in Homs was violently crushed, with at least two demonstrators killed by security forces.


The regime's insidious mix of carrot-and-stick tactics with violent repression methods has made it resoundingly clear that the regime has little faith in the intelligence and self-determination of the Syrian people.



The government seems to think that hollow concessions, followed by violent threats, will either serve to convince the people of Syria that the regime is in fact reasonable and has its interest at heart, while simultaneously scaring off more determined Syrians with the threat of violent reprisals.


Needless to say, the Syrian people have seen through this schizophrenic modus operandi of the regime, and have come to the conclusion that the notion of real reform being enacted by a government that has shot down - in cold blood - peaceful citizens of the state, is now impossible. The popular credibility which 'Bashar the reformer' once amassed, is quickly dissolving.


The pro-democracy movement is snowballing in numbers and in demands. What was inconceivable a mere month ago is now looking inevitable: Syrians are starting to fathom the possibility of an alternative to Bashar and his regime. The now famous slogan, "the people demand the downfall of the regime," which has been chanted in Homs, will now undoubtedly be echoed across the country.


The people of Syria are coming to the harsh realisation that reform cannot be handed down from an authoritarian regime. That change can only come if the people demand it, by taking to the streets in the spirit of the Tunisians and Egyptians that came before them.


M. Yaser Tabbara is a Syrian American civil rights lawyer and activist. He is currently the president of Project Mobilize, a Chicago based political action organisation.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera