Syrian security forces yesterday flooded a tense neighbourhood where a mourner was shot dead in the largest anti-regime rally seen in Damascus, activists said, blunting calls for a “day of defiance.”
The blood of martyrs exhorts you to disobedience
With protesters more emboldened in Damascus after 11 months of revolt which has largely escaped the city, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime also came under regional pressure as Egypt joined other Arab League states in recalling its ambassador.
Although the security presence thwarted attempts to stage new protests in Mazzeh district, scene of a Saturday funeral that became a huge anti-regime rally, business there ground to a halt.
Mohammed Shami, a spokesman for activists in Damascus province, said most shops were shut in Mazzeh as well as in the Barzeh, Qaboon, Kfar Sousa and Jubar districts.
Student demonstrations had been expected in Mazzeh but security forces were stationed around schools, he said.
Another activist, Abu Huzaifa from the Mazzeh Committee, said police forced the family of Samer al-Khatib, 34, who died after being shot in the neck during the mass funeral on Saturday, to bury him in a small ceremony earlier than planned, in an apparent move to prevent protests.
Deeb al-Dimashqi, a member of the Syrian Revolution Council based in the capital, said earlier that “huge demonstrations” were expected, but added that security forces had imposed a tight clampdown.
In a message to Damascus residents on the “Syrian Revolution 2011” Facebook page, activists said: “The blood of the martyrs exhorts you to disobedience,” after more than 6,000 deaths since anti-regime protests erupted in March, according to activist estimates.
Activists and official media reported at least 14 people killed yesterday.
A “terrorist group” shot dead prosecutor Nidal Ghazal and judge Mohammed Ziyadeh and their driver in the northwestern province of Idlib, the official Sana news agency reported.
Four people, including a student, were killed and three wounded when gunmen fired on a bus in the central province of Hama, Sana said.
Security forces shot dead a woman when they stormed the town of Sukhna in Homs province as they hunted activists, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.
It also said that a man was shot dead at a checkpoint in the northern province of Aleppo.
A lawyer was shot dead as troops stormed the town of Al-Ashara in the province of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory said.
An army deserter was killed in Bab Sbaa in Homs, while three troopers were killed in a gunfight with deserters in Dael village in Daraa province, the southern cradle of dissent, the Observatory said.
Meanwhile, activists said regime forces pounded the flashpoint central city of Homs for the 15th straight day.
Sporadic shelling that targeted the Baba Amr neighbourhood in the defiant city intensified in the afternoon, at the rate of 4-5 rockets a minute, said Hadi Abdullah of theGeneral Commission of the Syrian Revolution.
He also said the Bab Sbaa, Bab Dreib and al-Safsafa districts were being targeted with sporadic shelling. Abdullah voiced fears that a new assault was imminent.
“News has been leaked to us from army officers about a bloody attack that will burn everything in Baba Amr,” he said.