www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0d56f806-68f8-11e0-9040-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Jt09rf9A
Protesters reject Assad’s reform promise
By Michael Peel
Syrians took to the streets and defied police baton assaults on Sunday in a rebuff to President Bashar al-Assad’s effort to quell protests by pledging limited reforms such as lifting the country’s 48-year-old emergency laws.
Demonstrations broke out in Aleppo, the country’s second city and an important bellwether of opinion, while debate crackled online between supporters and critics of the president.
The protests – on Syria’s Independence Day – came after Mr Assad pledged in a speech on Saturday to lift the country’s 48-year-old emergency laws, but refused to order a wider dismantling of his notoriously authoritarian police state.
Joshua Landis, director of the University of Oklahoma’s Centre for Middle East Studies, said that the president was in a “fight for the silent majority” of citizens, who were worried about the state of the country but feared “civil war and chaos” if he were toppled.
Prof Landis said: “On the one hand…they are very sympathetic to the demonstrators. But they don’t know if they want to overthrow the regime.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0415/Syrian-revolution-spreads-with-largest-protests-yet
Το παρακάτω video είναι από διαδήλωση στην πόλη Χομς της βόρειας Συρία, που ακολούθησε την κηδεία δολοφονηθέντων διαδηλωτών.
Demonstrations broke out in Aleppo, the country’s second city and an important bellwether of opinion, while debate crackled online between supporters and critics of the president.
The protests – on Syria’s Independence Day – came after Mr Assad pledged in a speech on Saturday to lift the country’s 48-year-old emergency laws, but refused to order a wider dismantling of his notoriously authoritarian police state.
Joshua Landis, director of the University of Oklahoma’s Centre for Middle East Studies, said that the president was in a “fight for the silent majority” of citizens, who were worried about the state of the country but feared “civil war and chaos” if he were toppled.
Prof Landis said: “On the one hand…they are very sympathetic to the demonstrators. But they don’t know if they want to overthrow the regime.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0415/Syrian-revolution-spreads-with-largest-protests-yet
Syrian revolution spreads, with largest protests yet
Syrian protests, which reached unprecedented numbers today, have spread to the key cities of Aleppo and Hama. The unrest has begun to draw in Lebanon.
By Nicholas Blanford
While the uprising has not yet reached the critical mass necessary to pose a serious threat to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, it is evident that the protests are spreading and intensifying. Antiregime demonstrations have become a daily occurrence, instead of being confined to Fridays. And they are no longer limited each day to the southern city of Deraa, where the rallies first began and which has become the epicenter of dissent.
Although the regime has offered some concessions, such as releasing detainees, forming a new government, and examining alternatives to the draconian state of emergency law, they have fallen far short of the demands of the protesters. Furthermore, the harsh suppression of the demonstrations by Syrian security forces, in which over 200 people have died according to human rights agencies, has served only to galvanize fresh protests.
The emergence of protests in Hama and Aleppo and the Idlib province in northern Syria is a new and significant development. Aleppo is Syria’s largest city and is populated mainly by Sunnis though it has sizable Christian and Kurdish communities.
The Syrian opposition recognized early on the importance of mobilizing this key city as well as Homs and Hama further south. These cities were the backbone of a revolt 30 years ago by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement. The revolt was brutally crushed in Hama in 1982 and the Muslim Brotherhood decimated. Homs has witnessed some protests in recent days, but the addition of Aleppo and Hama into the growing number of towns and cities rising up around the country was welcomed by the opposition.
“This is good news,” says Malath Aumran, the pseudonym of a Syrian activist living in exile in Beirut, Lebanon. “Now the revolution really is spreading.”
Analyst and diplomats in Beirut say that Assad will soon face a stark choice: either he will act upon his repeated promises of reform to dampen the revolt and encourage those Syrians who still believe the president is a reformer at heart, or he will intensify the crackdown – a step that could lead to civil war.
Such a war could potentially be similar to the conflict in Iraq following the 2003 invasion, pitting different sects against each other with meddling from Syria's neighbors.
Golan Druze divided on Syrian uprising
Agence France Press
Syria, Lebanon stability interdependent: conference
By Dana Khraiche
The conference, which was held at Le Bristol hotel, comes only a few days after a member of caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Movement – Hezbollah’s political rival – was accused by Syrian state media of involvement in the fueling of protests in Lebanon’s neighbor.
Hezbollah MP Nawaf Mousawi, also a speaker at the conference, said he was confident of the Syrian regime’s ability to “overcome this crisis,” and praised Syria’s support for Hezbollah.
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