Syrian forces killed at least 15 protesters as tens of thousands swarmed the streets after Friday prayers, activists said, a day after President Bashar al-Assad pledged that military assaults on civilians had been halted.
Russia and Turkey meanwhile dismissed growing calls led by US President Obama for Assad to quit, offering the embattled Syrian leader rare support despite a damning UN report on his “apparent shoot to kill” policy. On the political front, a group of “revolutionary blocs” formed a coalition vowing to bring down the regime and paid tribute to more than 2,000 civilians killed in crackdown on protesters since mid-March. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people, including an 11-year-old and a 72-year-old, were killed in the southern province of Daraa, epicentre of the anti-regime protests that erupted March 15.
Three others were killed in the central city of Homs and one in the Harasta suburb of Damascus. The Observatory said security forces opened fire on protesters, also wounding 16 people, in the Ghabagheb, Inkhil, Al-Herak and Nawa in Daraa, but the official SANA news agency blamed the shooting on “armed men.” The agency said a policeman and a civilian were killed in Ghabagheb and six security forces wounded.
Tens of thousands of people flooded streets in major Syrian towns on Friday as they emerged from the weekly Muslim prayers, with the largest anti-regime demonstration reported in Homs. Around 20,000 were on the streets of Al-Khalidiyeh demanding the ouster of Assad, said the Observatory, which also reported rallies in the eastern oil hub of Deir Ezzor, in the northern cities of Latakia and Banias.
Some 10,000 people marched in the Kurdish-populated cities of Qamishli and Amuda, according to an activist at the scene, while other protests were took place in and around Damascus and in Hama in the centre. Friday’s rallies put to the test a commitment given by Assad to UN chief Ban Ki-moon the previous day that his security forces have ended operations against civilians.
The Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook group, one of the drivers of the protests, had called for the demonstrations under the slogan, “Friday of the beginnings of victory.” And UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told members of the Security Council there was “reliable corroborative evidence” that Syrian forces are deliberately shooting anti-regime demonstrators.
“We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” Obama said. His call was quickly echoed by the leaders of Britain, France and Germany while Spain followed suit on Friday. But Russia and Turkey disagreed.
“We do not support such calls,” Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, citing a foreign ministry source who added that Assad’s regime must be “given time to implement all the reform processes which have been announced.”
Meanwhile the United Nations said that a much-delayed humanitarian mission would go to Syria this weekend after the Security Council was briefed on a shoot-to-kill policy against protesters, stadium executions and children feared killed in Syrian government custody.
