Syrian forces injure scores trying to topple statue

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Syrian forces injured scores of people when they fired at 7,000 demonstrators who marched overnight in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor to topple a statue of late President Hafez al-Assad, residents said on Sunday. “The crowd reached President’s Square when it was met by … bullets from the security police and armoured cars that had deployed there to prevent the ‘sanam’ (false deity) from being toppled,” a witness told Reuters, referring to the 6-metre stone statue.
Another resident said protesters had first gathered around the house of Mouath al-Rakkad, a 14-year-old boy who was shot dead on Friday during a demonstration against the rule of Assad’s son, President Bashar al-Assad. “The big statue is about the only one left standing in Deir al-Zor. All the other busts and statues of Hafez I know of had been toppled,” said the resident, a doctor who practices in the city.