At least five people were shot dead as thousands of Syrians took to the streets to rally against President Bashar al-Assad on the first Friday of Ramadan in support of the protest hub of Hama, activists said.
Security forces fired at demonstrators in Irbin, near Damascus, killing five people and wounding many others, Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights head Abdel Karim Rihawi told AFP in Nicosia, updating an earlier toll. Another activist, Rami Abdel Rahman, said 20 people were wounded, seven of them seriously as security forces opened fire in the Ter Maala district of the central city of Homs.
Communications were completely cut off as the army stepped up an operation to crush dissent in Hama, north of Damascus, where security forces killed at least 30 civilians and wounded dozens more earlier in the week. “Thousands of demonstrators marched in Deir Ezzor, Daraa and Qamishli in support of the city of Hama despite the extreme heat,” Rihawi said, adding that they numbered 30,000 in Deir Ezzor alone. Abdel Rahman said that “more than 12,000 people” also marched in Bench, in Idlib province, “to demand the fall of the regime and express their support for Hama and Deir Ezzor.”
“Hundreds of people came out of the Al-Mans Uri mosque in Jablah, chanting ‘God is with us,'” he told AFP. State television, meanwhile, said two members of the security forces were shot and wounded by gunmen posted on rooftops in Duma, a suburb of the capital. The call for Friday’s protests came from activists on Facebook group The Syrian Revolution 2011, a driving force behind the demonstrations calling for greater freedoms since mid-March.
