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Witnesses Say 5 Killed in Syria Security Crackdown

   VOA News  April 25, 2011
   A man throws a rock at a passing tank in a location given as Deraa in
   this still image from an amateur video, April 25, 2011

Photo: Reuters

   A man throws a rock at a passing tank in a location given as Deraa in
   this still image from an amateur video, April 25, 2011

   Witnesses in southern Syria say security forces have killed five
   people, as authorities widen their crackdown on a five-week
   anti-government uprising.
   The witnesses said Monday they saw the bodies in a car that had been
   attacked by security forces in Daraa, after tanks and soldiers rolled
   into the city.
   Rights groups have also reported gunfire from security forces in Douma,
   a suburb of the capital, Damascus.
   On Sunday, rights groups said security forces killed at least four
   civilians and detained many opposition activists in the coastal city of
   Jableh, following a pro-democracy protest against the rule of President
   Bashar al-Assad the previous night. Witnesses say the killings occurred
   even though no protests were in progress at the time.
   Meanwhile, secret police raids were carried out across Syria Sunday,
   especially around Damascus, and the central city of Homs. Arrests
   continued as mourners attended funerals for protesters killed during
   the previous two days.
   Sweeps against anti-government protesters have escalated despite last
   week's repeal of the country's nearly 50-year-old emergency law. The
   New York Times, quoting the executive director of the Syrian rights
   group Insan Wissam Tarif, said 217 people have disappeared since
   Friday.
   Funerals were held for those killed in the violence Friday and
   Saturday. Rights groups say at least 120 people were killed in the
   two-day crackdown.
   The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch Sunday called for a U.N. inquiry into
   the deaths and for international sanctions on the officials responsible
   for the killings.
   President Assad signed a decree ending decades of emergency rule last
   week. The ruling was part of his effort to end anti-government unrest
   by meeting a key demand of protesters.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.

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References

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