Syria President offers more freedoms after forces kill 37 - 24Mar2011 -...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110324.
President Bashar al-Assad made an unprecedented pledge of greater...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110324.
President Bashar al-Assad made an unprecedented pledge of greater freedom and more prosperity to Syrians Thursday as anger mounted following a crackdown on protesters that left at least 37 dead.
As an aide to Assad in Damascus read out a list of decrees, which included a possible end to 48 years of emergency rule, a human rights group said a leading pro-democracy activist, Mazen Darwish, had been arrested.
In the southern city of Deraa, a hospital official said at least 37 people had been killed there Wednesday when security forces opened fire on demonstrators inspired by uprisings across the Arab world that have shaken authoritarian leaders.
Announcing the sort of concessions that would have seemed almost unimaginable three months ago in Syria, Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told a news conference the president had not himself ordered his forces to fire on protesters:
"I was a witness to the instructions of His Excellency that live ammunition should not be fired -- even if the police, security forces or officers of the status were being killed."
Assad, she said, would draft laws to provide for media freedoms and allow political movements other than the Baath party, which has ruled for half a century.
Assad, who succeed his late father Hafez al-Assed in 2000, had, Shaaban said, decreed the drafting of a law for political parties "to be presented for public debate" and would strive above all to raise living standards across the country.
She said another decree would look at "ending with great urgency the emergency law, along with issuing legislation that assures the security of the nation and its citizens."
DERAA KILLINGS
Security forces opened fire on hundreds of youths on the outskirts of Deraa Wednesday, witnesses said, after nearly a week of protests in which seven civilians had already died.
The main hospital in Deraa, in southern Syria near the Jordanian border, had received the bodies of at least 37 protesters killed Wednesday, a hospital official said.
Around 20,000 people marched Thursday in the funerals for nine of those killed, chanting freedom slogans and denying official accounts that infiltrators and "armed gangs" were behind the killings and violence in Deraa.
"Traitors do not kill their own people," they chanted. "God, Syria, Freedom. The blood of martyrs is not spilled in vain!"
As Syrian soldiers armed with automatic rifles roamed the streets of the southern city, residents emptied shops of basic goods and said they feared Assad's government was intent on crushing the revolt by force.
Assad, a close ally of Iran, key player in neighboring Lebanon and supporter of militant groups opposed to Israel, had earlier dismissed demands for reform in Syria, a country of 20 million people run by the Baath Party since a 1963 coup. Assad's father took personal in 1970.
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[03 June 2012] israel more vulnerable than ever: Leader - English
[03 June 2012] Israel more vulnerable than ever: Leader - English
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei was addressing a large crowd of people gathering...
[03 June 2012] Israel more vulnerable than ever: Leader - English
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei was addressing a large crowd of people gathering in Imam Khomeini\\\\\\\'s mausoleum in south of Tehran to commemorate the 23 passing anniversary of the late Leader.
Meanwhile the leader rejected Israeli threats of military strike against Iran as a sign of regime weakness.
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[24 July 2012] US Israel seek to launch more wars in Mideast - English
[24 July 2012] US Israel seek to launch more wars in Mideast - English
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Tel Aviv will "have to...
[24 July 2012] US Israel seek to launch more wars in Mideast - English
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Tel Aviv will "have to act" to prevent a possible transfer of chemical weapons from Syria to Lebanon.
In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Netanyahu said the need for an intervention may arise in case of the collapse of the Syrian government.
"So I think that this is something we'll have to act to stop if the need arises. And the need might arise if there's a regime collapse," the Israeli premier said.
He made the comments a few days after Israeli Minister of Military Affairs Ehud Barak made similar remarks.
Barak said that "the moment (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) starts to fall we will conduct intelligence monitoring and will liaise with other agencies."
"Israel cannot accept a situation where advanced weapons systems are transferred from Syria to Lebanon," he said.
This is while Israel has intensified its military buildup in the occupied Golan Heights near the Syrian border.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Dr. Randy Short, with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, from Washington, to further discuss the issue.
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[26 June 13] Insurgents in Syria execute more people for supporting...
More startling images find their way out of Syria ... these two Syrians are about to face the fate of many others being beheaded at the hands of...
More startling images find their way out of Syria ... these two Syrians are about to face the fate of many others being beheaded at the hands of Anusra front - an al-Qaeda branch in Syria that proudly posts similar executions almost on weekly basis.
Last week alone, thy posted three executions -- one for a Syria army sergeant in Hasaka , another for a man and two women in Aleppo and the third in Idlib.
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