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    July 04, 2011

Activists: Syrian Security Forces Kill 2 in Damascus Suburb

   VOA News
   Demonstrators march through the streets after Friday prayers at Hajar
   Al Aswad in Damascus. Defying weeks of military crackdown,
   demonstrations broke out in Damascus suburbs, near the Lebanese border,
   July 1, 2011 Photo: Reuters
   Demonstrators march through the streets after Friday prayers at Hajar
   Al Aswad in Damascus. Defying weeks of military crackdown,
   demonstrations broke out in Damascus suburbs, near the Lebanese border,
   July 1, 2011

   Syrian activists and residents say security forces shot dead two
   anti-government protesters Sunday night in a suburb of the capital,
   Damascus.
   The activists and residents said the shootings happened in Hajar Aswad,
   where protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule have been
   common.
   Witnesses also said Sunday government tanks deployed around the central
   city of Hama, where troops arrested suspected dissidents and gunfire
   was heard as part of a crackdown on anti-government protests.
   At least 150,000 people marched in Hama Friday in one of the largest
   anti-Assad protests since the uprising began in March. Assad dismissed
   the governor of Hama province the next day.
   The United States and European Union have imposed a series of sanctions
   on President Assad and his aides to pressure him into stopping the
   violent suppression of the pro-democracy movement.
   Rights groups say more than 1,400 people have been killed by security
   forces since mid-March, most of them unarmed protesters.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
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References

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