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Thousands protest in #Syria calling for Arab League to suspend regime's membership, at least 26 shot dead on Fridaynyti.ms/sukHcG
EIRUT, Lebanon — Thousands of Syrians took to the streets on Friday, urging the Arab League to suspend the membership of the Syrian government, which they say has violated an initiative the league brokered to end the armed crackdown on the eight-month-old political uprising.
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In another grim day in what has become one of the bloodiest periods of the unrest, human rights activists said that at least 26 people were shot dead by security forces across Syria on Friday, 13 of them in the restive city of Homs, including a defecting soldier. Six were killed in Dara’a, the southern city where the uprising began, and four in Hama, in central Syria. One person was killed in Idlib Province in the northwest.
The Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting for Saturday, and diplomats said they would begin discussing suspending Syria and imposing economic sanctions. Such actions, if taken, would be largely symbolic blows to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which has long portrayed itself as an axis of Arab politics and a champion of Arab unity. Still, Syrian officials seem worried about alienating the league, one of the last interlocutors for their increasingly isolated government.
As in past days, most of the strife occurred in Homs, a city north of Damascus that activists have nicknamed the capital of revolution. For more than a week, military and security forces have besieged the most restive neighborhoods. Residents there reported clashes in several locales, especially Baba Amr, where army defectors have sought refuge.
Residents said that other streets of the city, Syria’s third largest, were empty and that soldiers were ordering residents who dared to venture outside back indoors.
“My mother hasn’t left the house in three days,” said a woman who gave her name as Um Janti, adding that her mother was in her 80s. “She wanted to walk outside and see sunlight.”
Residents of Homs also reported that security forces and soldiers were looting, especially the houses of people who had fled the crackdown and fighting.
Um Kamal, a homemaker, said her house and a relative’s were plundered while they were away. “They took clothes and a bottle of whiskey, and then they went to my brother-in-law’s house upstairs, and they ate, used the bathrooms and the bedrooms, left them all messed up,” she said.
Both residents were reached by telephone. The Syrian government has barred most journalists from entering the country.
The Syrian government announced on Nov. 2 that it had agreed to an Arab League-sponsored plan to end the political violence that has left an estimated 3,500 dead and tens of thousands behind bars, deepened sectarian divisions and drawn international condemnation. President Assad’s government promised to withdraw all security forces and military vehicles from the streets and to stop firing on protesters.
But instead, the period since then has become one of the deadliest of the uprising, with activists counting at least 104 deaths.
“Has the Arab League initiative stopped our blood from flowing?” read one protest banner in a district near Homs on Friday.
The Syrian government has insisted that it is adhering to the Arab League agreement, pointing to the release of about 550 prisoners and its offer of amnesty to those who put down their arms. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem reiterated the point on Thursday.
From the beginning of the uprising, Syria has contended that it is facing an armed insurrection by militant Islamists, financed from abroad, who have killed more than 1,100 soldiers and members of security forces. Syrian human rights activists have denounced the government’s description as a lie. But there is no dispute that armed elements in places like Homs have taken on a greater role in a revolt that was overwhelmingly peaceful in its early days.
American officials have pushed for a decisive move by the Arab League. In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey D. Feltman suggested that the moment had come for the league, long prone to indecision, to take a clear stand.
“If the regime continues to spurn this most recent ‘last chance,’ we hope that the Arab League will take additional, clear measures to express its condemnation of the Syrian regime and solidarity with the Syrian people,” Mr. Feltman said.
But one Arab diplomat in Cairo said on Friday that while suspending Syria was part of the discussion, it seemed unlikely at this stage.
Eiad Shurbaji, an opposition figure reached in Damascus by phone, expressed skepticism that Syria would respond sincerely to any new Arab League pressure. “Is it suspending Syria’s membership that is going to achieve that?” he said. “I don’t know. So far nothing has worked.”
Qatar seemed the most aggressive in seeking such a move, but opposition comes from various quarters. Saudi Arabia, the most authoritarian and conservative country in the Arab world, appeared more cautious, as did Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and others, whose governments feared such a move could provide momentum to the region’s tumult.
This week, two leading rights organizations — Human Rights Watch, based in New York, and Amnesty International in London — called on the Arab League to support the referral of Syria to the International Criminal Court for committing what the groups described as crimes against humanity during the crackdown.
