Some Syrians went on strike Thursday in response to calls by activists, as the protests against the autocratic rule of President Bashar al-Assad hit the 100 day mark. The Facebook group Syrian Revolution 2011 posted the call for a general strike as a “sign of mourning” for those killed in a country-wide military crackdown on the opposition movement.
The call was partially followed in the flashpoint central cities of Homs and Hama, in the Damascus suburbs of Douma and Muadamiyeh and in the southern neighbourhoods of the western town of Banias, an activist said. Some shops and businesses were also shuttered in the northwestern city of Qamishli and in villages in the southern province of Daraa, epicentre of the protests that erupted in mid-March.
The Facebook group also called on Syrians to stage rallies on Friday, the weekly Muslim day of rest and prayer that has become a springboard for demonstrations across the Arab world. “Bashar is no longer my president and his government no longer represents me,” is the theme declared for Friday’s rallies. “The fall of legitimacy,” rally says the message on the main page of the Internet protest group.
The latest rallying calls come a day after Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem held a press conference in which he said Damascus rejected all foreign interference in the Arab country. Security forces on Wednesday broke up a student demonstration at Damascus University by force, detaining more than 100 students but releasing most of them hours later, an activist said. Funerals meanwhile were held in several cities, including Hama and Homs, for pro-democracy demonstrators killed by security forces the previous day, activists said.
At least nine civilians were shot dead by security forces when the opened fire to break up demonstrations across Syria on Tuesday, the head of Syria’s National Organisation of Human Rights, Ammar Qorabi, told AFP in Nicosia, reached by telephone.
