(Updates with a comment from protester in the fifth paragraph; Syrian lawmaker in seventh. See EXTRA and MET for more on turmoil in the region.)
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s security forces clashed with protesters in several cities after his promises of freedoms and pay increases failed to prevent dissent from spreading across the country.
The protests that started earlier this month in the southern province of Daraa “are believed” to have resulted in the deaths of 55 people, London-based Amnesty International said in a statement on its website yesterday. Security forces opened fire on protesters in the town of al-Sanamein in Daraa and carried out arrests in the capital, Damascus, it said.
Video footage on the Internet broadcast by Pan-Arab news networks Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya today showed hundreds of protesters in cities such as Homs and Daraa, some tearing down a poster of Assad. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said an armed group killed one man in Homs while another group in Sanamein attacked security forces, who killed several assailants.
Syria is the latest Middle Eastern country to be hit by the wave of uprisings that ousted longtime rulers in Egypt and Tunisia, and sparked a civil war in Libya. Unrest began in Syria on March 15 when as many 200 people took to the streets of Damascus against Assad’s government.
“Security elements are firing live bullets on protesters,” a man who identified himself as Omar al-Masri, told BBC Arabic television in a telephone interview from Daraa. “We are not gangs. We are peaceful protesters.”
Two Options
Assad’s regime has “only two options,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a report on its website. “One involves an immediate and inevitably risky political initiative that might convince the Syrian people that the regime is willing to undertake dramatic change. The other entails escalating repression, which has every chance of leading to a bloody and ignominious end.”
“There is change and there is reform,” Anas al-Shami, a Syrian parliamentarian told Al Arabiya television in an interview today. “Surely this reform wasn’t perfect but we are working night and day.”
The crackdown on demonstrators yesterday came a day after Assad’s political and media adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, said protesters’ demands were “legitimate” and would be met. The government may lift a 1963 emergency law that suspended most rights, increase judicial authority and prepare a political parties law, she said in a televised briefing March 24.
Calm Way
“The demands of the people of Daraa and the rest of the Syrian people across all provinces are legitimate,” she said. “All legitimate demands will be met, but in a calm way.”
Shaaban said Assad didn’t give orders to fire on civilians, saying “there were some mistakes.”
The Obama administration condemned the violence against civilians by Syrian authorities and urged that those responsible be held accountable. A State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said the U.S. wants to see actions to back promises from the government.
Syria is confronting the same challenges facing other governments in the region -- the “unmet political and economic grievances of their people,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said March 24 while visiting Israel.
“Some of them are dealing with it better than others,” Gates said. “I’ve just come from Egypt, where the Egyptian army stood on the sidelines and allowed people to demonstrate, and in fact, empowered a revolution. The Syrians might take a lesson from that.”
Pay Raises
Assad ordered pay increases of between 20 percent and 30 percent for state employees and an income-tax cut, state television reported. He also ordered a 25 percent increase in the pensions of former government employees.
Shaaban said the additional measures planned by the government include moves to combat corruption, a new media law guaranteeing more freedom, improving living standards for residents of border areas, and changes to criminal law to ban random arrests and speed the processing of cases.
“We have seen this pattern repeated, where there are protests, and the government makes some concessions but they are not enough for protesters and growing opposition,” David W. Lesch, professor of Middle East history at Trinity University in San Antonio, said by phone.
Shaaban accused foreign forces of meddling in Syria and said there are “signs of foreign funding” behind the protests. She denied reports that Iran and Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim group it is accused of supporting, were helping to quell the unrest.
Border Areas
Daraa residents are seeking the dismissal of some officials and permission to sell land in border territories without government approval. They also want detainees recently jailed on political charges to be freed, including a number of children held for writing anti-government graffiti.
“The excessive force apparently again being used by security forces is the latest example of the Syrian authorities’ appalling and brutal response to recent dissent, and make their pledge to investigate the violence sound rather hollow,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy director for Middle East and North Africa. For the government to have credibility, it “must immediately issue clear orders to restrain the security forces to prevent further loss of life.”
--With assistance from Zainab Fattah in Dubai and Nayla Razzouk in Amman. Editors: Paul Tighe, Jim McDonald
To contact the reporters on this story: Alaa Shahine in Dubai at asalha@bloomberg.net; Nadeem Hamid in Washington at nhamid3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Riad Hamade at rhamade@bloomberg.net.
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s security forces clashed with protesters in several cities after his promises of freedoms and pay increases failed to prevent dissent from spreading across the country.
The protests that started earlier this month in the southern province of Daraa “are believed” to have resulted in the deaths of 55 people, London-based Amnesty International said in a statement on its website yesterday. Security forces opened fire on protesters in the town of al-Sanamein in Daraa and carried out arrests in the capital, Damascus, it said.
Video footage on the Internet broadcast by Pan-Arab news networks Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya today showed hundreds of protesters in cities such as Homs and Daraa, some tearing down a poster of Assad. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said an armed group killed one man in Homs while another group in Sanamein attacked security forces, who killed several assailants.
Syria is the latest Middle Eastern country to be hit by the wave of uprisings that ousted longtime rulers in Egypt and Tunisia, and sparked a civil war in Libya. Unrest began in Syria on March 15 when as many 200 people took to the streets of Damascus against Assad’s government.
“Security elements are firing live bullets on protesters,” a man who identified himself as Omar al-Masri, told BBC Arabic television in a telephone interview from Daraa. “We are not gangs. We are peaceful protesters.”
Two Options
Assad’s regime has “only two options,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a report on its website. “One involves an immediate and inevitably risky political initiative that might convince the Syrian people that the regime is willing to undertake dramatic change. The other entails escalating repression, which has every chance of leading to a bloody and ignominious end.”
“There is change and there is reform,” Anas al-Shami, a Syrian parliamentarian told Al Arabiya television in an interview today. “Surely this reform wasn’t perfect but we are working night and day.”
The crackdown on demonstrators yesterday came a day after Assad’s political and media adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, said protesters’ demands were “legitimate” and would be met. The government may lift a 1963 emergency law that suspended most rights, increase judicial authority and prepare a political parties law, she said in a televised briefing March 24.
Calm Way
“The demands of the people of Daraa and the rest of the Syrian people across all provinces are legitimate,” she said. “All legitimate demands will be met, but in a calm way.”
Shaaban said Assad didn’t give orders to fire on civilians, saying “there were some mistakes.”
The Obama administration condemned the violence against civilians by Syrian authorities and urged that those responsible be held accountable. A State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said the U.S. wants to see actions to back promises from the government.
Syria is confronting the same challenges facing other governments in the region -- the “unmet political and economic grievances of their people,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said March 24 while visiting Israel.
“Some of them are dealing with it better than others,” Gates said. “I’ve just come from Egypt, where the Egyptian army stood on the sidelines and allowed people to demonstrate, and in fact, empowered a revolution. The Syrians might take a lesson from that.”
Pay Raises
Assad ordered pay increases of between 20 percent and 30 percent for state employees and an income-tax cut, state television reported. He also ordered a 25 percent increase in the pensions of former government employees.
Shaaban said the additional measures planned by the government include moves to combat corruption, a new media law guaranteeing more freedom, improving living standards for residents of border areas, and changes to criminal law to ban random arrests and speed the processing of cases.
“We have seen this pattern repeated, where there are protests, and the government makes some concessions but they are not enough for protesters and growing opposition,” David W. Lesch, professor of Middle East history at Trinity University in San Antonio, said by phone.
Shaaban accused foreign forces of meddling in Syria and said there are “signs of foreign funding” behind the protests. She denied reports that Iran and Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim group it is accused of supporting, were helping to quell the unrest.
Border Areas
Daraa residents are seeking the dismissal of some officials and permission to sell land in border territories without government approval. They also want detainees recently jailed on political charges to be freed, including a number of children held for writing anti-government graffiti.
“The excessive force apparently again being used by security forces is the latest example of the Syrian authorities’ appalling and brutal response to recent dissent, and make their pledge to investigate the violence sound rather hollow,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy director for Middle East and North Africa. For the government to have credibility, it “must immediately issue clear orders to restrain the security forces to prevent further loss of life.”
--With assistance from Zainab Fattah in Dubai and Nayla Razzouk in Amman. Editors: Paul Tighe, Jim McDonald
To contact the reporters on this story: Alaa Shahine in Dubai at asalha@bloomberg.net; Nadeem Hamid in Washington at nhamid3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Riad Hamade at rhamade@bloomberg.net.
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