Syria protests spread, authorities pull back
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DAMASCUS |
In Deraa, hundreds of black-uniformed security forces wielding AK-47 assault rifles lined the streets but did not confront thousands of mourners who marched at the funeral of 23-year-old Raed al-Kerad, a protester killed in Deraa.
"God, Syria, freedom. The people want the overthrow of corruption," they chanted. The slogan is a play on the words "the people want the overthrow of the regime," the rallying cry of revolutions that overthrew the veteran rulers of Tunisia and Egypt.
Security forces opened fire last Friday on civilians taking part in a peaceful protest in Deraa to demand the release of 15 children detained for writing protest graffiti.
Authorities released the children on Monday in a sign they were hoping to defuse tension in the border town, which witnessed more protests after Friday's crackdown.
Protesters have also demanded the release of political prisoners, the dismantling of secret police headquarters in Deraa, the dismissal of the governor, a public trial for those responsible for the killings and the scrapping of regulations requiring secret police permission to sell and buy property.
Deraa's secret police is headed by a cousin of Assad, who has emerged in the last four years from isolation by the West over Syria's role in Lebanon and Iraq and backing for mostly Palestinian militant groups.
Assad has strengthened Syria's ties with Shi'ite Iran as he sought to improve relations with the United States and strike a peace deal with Israel to regain the occupied Golan Heights, lost in the 1967 Middle East war.
But he left the authoritarian system he inherited intact.
His father sent troops to the city of Hama in 1982 to crush the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, killing thousands in the conservative religious city.
(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi and Leigh Thomas in Paris; editing by Janet Lawrence)
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