BEIRUT, May 6, (Agencies): A leading human rights activist says Syrian security forces have killed 36 people during widespread protests.
Thousands of demonstrators held rallies Friday in major areas across the country, including the capital, Damascus, and its suburbs, despite an increased security presence.
The activist asked that his name not be used because of mounting security concerns in Syria. His group compiles death toll figures and human rights violations in the country.
Rights groups say more than 580 civilians and 100 soldiers have been killed in the seven-week-old uprising against President Bashar Assad’s autocratic regime.
Activists and witnesses said demonstrations broke out after the main Friday prayers in cities across the country of 20 million people, from Banias on the Mediterranean coast to Qamishly in the Kurdish east.
International criticism has mounted against Assad, who has gone on the offensive to maintain his family’s four-decade grip on power and crush demonstrators demanding freedom.
European Union governments agreed on Friday to impose asset freezes and travel restrictions against Syrian officials responsible for the violent repression, which rights campaigners say has killed more than 560 people.
It was not immediately clear if Assad himself would be targeted under the sanctions, which follows last week’s agreement in principle to levy an arms embargo on Syria. The measures will be approved on Monday if no member state objects.
Assad’s security forces and troops, which stormed the city of Deraa last week, have prevented demonstrators establishing a platform such as Egypt’s Tahrir Square by blocking access to the capital Damascus, but every week protesters have used Friday prayers to launch fresh marches.
“The people want the overthrow of the regime,” shouted 2,000 demonstrators in the Damascus suburb of Saqba, demanding the release of hundreds of relatives arrested by security forces in the last few days, a witness said.
Footage released on the Internet and aired on Al Jazeera television showed protesters in several towns and cities echoing the same calls for freedom and change of leadership.
Tanks deployed in the Damascus district of Barzeh and in the central city of Homs, where five demonstrators were killed when security forces opened fire on a large protest, a rights campaigner in the city said.
“Five bodies were picked up in Bab al-Sibaa area. There are scores of injured protesters. Thousands are still marching peacefully in other parts of Homs,” said the campaigner.
The European Union agreed on Friday to impose sanctions on 14 Syrian officials for their part in a violent government crackdown against protesters, but President Bashar al-Assad was not among those targeted.
After a meeting of EU ambassadors, the 27 country bloc said it would impose travel restrictions and asset freezes on the 14 individuals, with the measures to be formally approved early next week if no member state objects.
The restrictions, which do not include any move against Syria’s oil industry or its exports, will come into law later this month, once the legal framework has been drawn up.
The move follows a decision last week to impose an arms embargo against Syria.
“There is an agreement in principle,” an EU official said of the asset freeze and travel ban decision. “It would be adopted probably officially early next week.”
While Assad is not on the list, there is the possibility that he will be added in time, the official said.
Syria’s defence minister was also not included among the 14.
Assad, grappling with the most serious challenge to his 11-year rule, has ordered the military to crush demonstrators who have been inspired by anti-government revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.
Human rights groups say the army, security forces and gunmen loyal to Assad have killed at least 560 demonstrators since the protests erupted on March 18.
Syrian secret police have arrested prominent Damascene preacher Mouaz al-Khatib, a major figure in Syria’s pro-democracy uprising, human rights campaigners said on Friday.
“Political Security called Sheikh Mouaz at 11 pm on Thursday. They politely asked him to come in for five minutes. He told them he was ill but they insisted. He went and we did not hear from him since,” a colleague of Khatib told Reuters.
Khatib, head of the independent Islamic Civilization Society, is seen as an enlightened religious figure. He had moved to assure Syria’s minorities that the diversity of the country would be respected if President Bashar al-Assad falls.
“We call for freedom for every person. For every Sunni, Alawite, Ismaili and Christian, whether Arab or a member of the great Kurdish nation,” Khatib told protesters last month. Opposition figures Aref Dalila, an Alawite, and Michel Kilo, a Christian, were by his side.
Expel
France on Friday expelled 14 Libyan diplomats loyal to the government of Muammar Gaddafi as Amnesty International said Libyan forces could be guilty of war crimes in the besieged city of Misrata.
France, the United States, Britain and others are trying to go beyond a NATO bombing campaign against troops loyal to Gaddafi to find other ways of helping an uprising that prised eastern Libya from his control but then stalled.
The bombing and imposition of a no-fly zone, both intended to protect civilians, have not prevented scores being killed in government attacks on remaining pockets of rebellion in western Libya, notably the besieged cities of Misrata and Zintan.
Amnesty International said indiscriminate attacks on Misrata, including the use of snipers, cluster bombs and artillery in civilian areas, might amount to war crimes.
“The scale of the relentless attacks that we have seen by al-Gaddafi forces to intimidate the residents of Misrata for more than two months is truly horrifying,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s senior adviser in Libya.
“It shows a total disregard for the lives of ordinary people and is in clear breach of international humanitarian law.”
The International Organisation for Migration evacuated 1,100 people from Misrata by ship on Wednesday under government shelling that killed five people.
In Geneva, IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya spoke of “a life and death operation where every single minute counted”.
She told reporters the IOM was now acutely worried about tens of thousands of destitute Chadians.
“The group that we are particularly concerned about are an estimated 40,000 Chadians in the southern Libyan town of Gatroun, believed to be mostly women and children and reported to be in a desperate and pitiful condition,” she said.
“People are telling us that these migrants have no food, water, shelter or sanitation ... Our fear is that, after many weeks like this and in these kind of temperatures, they will not be able to survive for much longer.”
A French diplomatic source said the decision to expel the 14 Libyan diplomats had been taken some time ago, “but there was a process to follow”.
“Many of these people were using their status as diplomats as a cover,” said the source, who declined to be named.
War crimes
Muammar Gaddafi’s forces may have committed war crimes in the rebel-held city of Misrata and the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating because of regime attempts to tighten its siege and block access by sea, Amnesty International said Friday.
Libyan troops have indiscriminately fired heavy artillery, rockets and cluster bombs at residential areas of Libya’s third-largest city during a two-month siege, in a clear breach of international humanitarian law, the group said in a report.
“Weapons designed for the battle field and not for residential areas are being launched into residential neighborhoods, killing civilians and really just creating a situation of terror,” said Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera.
Earlier this week, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told the UN Security Council he would seek arrest warrants against three Libyans for crimes against humanity committed in Libya. He did not name the suspects.
Misrata is the main rebel stronghold in western Libya, a region still largely under Gaddafi’s control, while the rebels hold positions in the east of the country.
Libyan troops besieging the city of 300,000 by land recently stepped up shelling of Misrata’s port to close the remaining lifeline. Hundreds of people have been killed in Misrata since February, medics say.
On Wednesday, government forces shelled Misrata’s port area as an aid vessel docked to evacuate hundreds of stranded migrant workers. The shells killed two toddlers and their aunt and uncle, all from Niger, as they waited for evacuation in a nearby tent camp.
The humanitarian situation has deteriorated sharply in recent days because the attempted port blockade has made it even more difficult to bring in supplies, said Rovera. She said there is no electricity or running water in large parts of the city, and food supplies are dwindling.
Government officials deny wrongdoing by Libyan troops, including shelling of civilian areas. Libya’s deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, said Thursday that the military has decided to block ships from reaching Misrata, but would not discuss the tactics by regime loyalists, such as last week’s mining of Misrata harbor or Wednesday’s shelling.