Violent protests erupted in Syria

At least 24 reported killed in and around volatile Syrian town

By the CNN Wire Staff
March 25, 2011

(CNN) -- Violent protests erupted in Syria on Friday, with at least 24 people killed in and near the restive Syrian city of Daraa and a boy slain in the coastal town of Latakia, reports said.

Fifteen people who tried to march to Daraa have been killed, sources said, and nine people died when security forces fired on demonstrators in Daraa's main square, said Wissam Tarif, a human rights activist.

There were many casualties in Daraa, said Abdullah, who asked that his full name not be reported due to security concerns. He said he was an eyewitness to Friday's events in the city, which has been engulfed by deadly clashes in recent days between security forces and protesters.

"Thousands gathered and moved to the governor's building in Daraa, and there they burned a large picture of Bashar al-Assad, and then they toppled a statue of Hafez al-Assad in the center of the square," Abdullah said, referring to the current president and his late father, the former president.

"After that, armed men came out from the roof of the officers' club in front of the governor's office and started firing at the crowd," he said.

Aman al Aswad, an opposition activist, also told CNN about ongoing clashes with security forces in the central square. He said it appears that dozens of people have been killed or injured, but couldn't be precise on the totals.

CNN was unable to independently confirm the accounts as the Syrian government has yet to grant access to the network.

Earlier, anti-government rhetoric rang out across the town in an outpouring that drew more than 100,000 people, according to Kamal Aswad, a political activist in Daraa.

People decried recent government pronouncements for reforms and an assertion by government spokeswoman and adviser Bouthaina Shabaan that the country's president ordered "no live bullets" would be used against demonstrators.

One witness said the people chanted "Bouthaina we do not want your bread, we want dignity." He said an "overwhelming number" of protesters came out in support of "martyrs" in Daraa, people who were killed in recent clashes.

"The whole of the city was out in the street to bury the dead and demand that those responsible be tried for their crimes against the people of Daraa," the witness said. "We broke the barrier of fear today and the security forces could not touch us."

The witness said the security forces had withdrawn from the center of the city and didn't interfere with the demonstrations, which are stoked by a range of political and economic grievances.

The international community is concerned about the situation in Syria. The United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke by phone with President Assad.

Human Rights Watch, among other groups, said Thursday that around three dozen people were killed in clashes in a 48-hour period.

"Syria's security forces are showing the same cruel disregard for protesters' lives as their counterparts in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

"President Bashar al-Assad's talk about reforms doesn't mean anything when his security forces are mowing down people who want to talk about them."

The government announced a number of measures that apparently addressed protesters' demands. Among them are decrees to cut taxes and raise government workers' salaries by 1,500 Syrian pounds ($32.60 US) a month and pledges to provide more press freedoms, increased job opportunities and curbs on government corruption.

The government said it will form a committee "to contact and listen to citizens in Daraa."

It also said it would study lifting the country's emergency law and adopting new legislation that would license political parties.

Syria's emergency law has been in effect since 1963. It allows the government to make preventive arrests and override constitutional and penal code statutes. It also bars detainees who haven't been charged from filing court complaints or from having a lawyer present during interrogations.

There were pockets of smaller turnouts in Syria on Friday.

State TV showed what it said was pro-government demonstrations in Aleppo and Damascus. Video emerged of protests in Hama, where the government violently suppressed an uprising in 1982

Haytham Manna, a Syrian rights activist who lives in France and originally hails from Daraa, reported demonstrations in the cities of Raqqa, where there were reports of arrests and injuries, Latakia, and Homs.

Tarif said a 13-year old boy was killed in Latakia after he was beaten by security forces when they tried to break up a demonstration. The teen was from the neighboring village of Jabla.

Haitham Maleh, a Syrian human rights lawyer in Damascus, said demonstrators turned out in Deir Al-Zour and were roughed up in Damascus.

"Syria today is like a barrel of gunpowder, and may explode at any moment," Maleh said. "What is happening in Syria cannot be tolerated anymore. We have been subjected to oppression, domination and suppression by the security authorities and we have unemployment exceeding 30%, while 60% of us live below the poverty line."

Maleh's son, Iyas, said a legal group asked the International Criminal Court to investigate possible crimes against humanity committed by Syrian forces. The group is the Haitham Maleh Foundation for the Defense of Syrian Human Rights Defenders.

The court told CNN that because Syria is not a "state party to the Rome statute" that established the international body, it can't take action on allegations of crimes in Syria. There are two exceptions however. One would be if the Syrian authorities accepted the jurisdiction of the court, and the other would be if the U.N. Security Council referred the situation to the court.

But Iyas Maleh is hoping that the Security Council will take action.

"If not, then I guess we will have to wait until there is a recognized Syrian transitional government who can sign the Rome statute."

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz, Saad Abedine, Mustafa Al-Arab, Christine Theodorou, and Joe Sterling contributed to this report.