...The
City of Jasminis the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
suburb of Harasta, injuring two people, residents and a human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
group said on Friday, ahead of further protests against President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneck
al-Assad'sOne of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor...
rule.
Overnight, about 300 security personnel entered the suburb, where there have been daily protests demanding political freedoms, and started firing from machineguns mounted on trucks and making house to house arrests, they said.
Syrian human rights organization Sawasiah said in a statement that security forces also raided the main hospital in Harasta, a tactic used in similar assaults on cities and towns elsewhere in Syria, and kidnapped three injured protesters "whose lives are now in extreme danger."
Some of the biggest protests against Assad's rule have been staged after Mohammedan prayers on Fridays.
The U.S. ambassador to Syria toured the city of Hama on Thursday to show solidarity with residents facing a security crackdown after weeks of anti-government protests there.
Syria condemned ambassador Robert Ford's visit, which it said went ahead without approval from Damascus, as an attempt to incite escalation in the city where more protests are planned on Friday.
| That's actually a pretty gutsy thing to do. Kudos to Mr. Ford. |
"The fundamental intention ... was to make absolutely clear with his physical presence that we stand with those Syrians who are expressing their right to speak for change," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.
"We are greatly concerned about the situation in Hama," Nuland told a news briefing in Washington.
The city was the scene of a 1982 massacre which came to symbolise the ruthless rule of the late President Hafez al-Assad and has staged some of the biggest protests in 14 weeks of demonstrations against his son Bashar.
Residents blocked streets with burning tyres on Thursday, trying to keep out busloads of security forces, and dozens of families decamped to a nearby town, an activist and a resident said.
Rami Abdelrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two men were found dead on a bridge leading out of Hama towards the industrial city of Homs.
Tanks were deployed around the outskirts of Hama this week after tens of thousands of people rallied in a central square last Friday demanding Assad's departure, the culmination of a month of growing protests in the city.
Protesters were exploiting an apparent security vacuum in the city after Assad's forces pulled back following the killing of at least 60 protesters on June 3.
Assad sacked the Hama provincial governor on Saturday. Security forces swept in on Monday and activists say at least 26 people have been killed in a wave of arrests and shootings, but the tanks have stayed outside the city. Residents say water and electricity supplies have been cut.