Damascus entity rounds up those suspected of opposing regime

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in YerevanImage by PanARMENIAN_Photo via Flickr
AFP:

Security forces raided homes across Syria on Sunday arresting regime opponents, according to activists, as funerals were held for people killed in a bloody crackdown on protests.

Students meanwhile called for a strike and two MPs resigned after at least 13 mourners were shot dead Saturday when Syrians swarmed the streets to bury scores of demonstrators killed in protests the previous day.

And Human Rights Watch urged the United Nations to probe the "carnage" from the massive "Good Friday" demonstrations and called for sanctions to be slapped on Syrian officials responsible for the killings.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of people were arrested in northern Syria on Friday, just a day after President Bashar al-Assad had lifted decades of emergency rule.

It gave the names of 18 men who were rounded up in the northern cities of Idlib, Raqqa and Aleppo, but said "dozens more were arrested in other Syrian towns."

Witnesses and activists said several people were also rounded up in and around Damascus but could not give exact numbers.

Syrian authorities "continue to carry out arbitrary arrests despite the lifting of emergency rule," the Observatory said in a statement, urging the release of political prisoners and a probe into Friday's killings.

...
The emergency decrees were lifted in form only. In substance the Damascus entity is still a totalitarian dictatorship that ignores the rule of law when it survival is at stake. It views the people of Syria as an existential threat.

The regime appears to be following the Iranian method of suppression of the will of the people, but the murder of the demonstrators is begetting next day demonstrations and not compliance with the will of the state.
Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more