Syrian security forces opened fire on a funeral procession for an activist in the oil-rich east on Sunday, as they pressed a crackdown on dissent, a human rights group said.
“Syrian security forces in Deir Ezzor fired live bullets at a funeral procession for Ziad al-Obeidi,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in reference to one of its associates on the ground. “Some 7,000 people took part in the funeral which turned into a demonstration calling for the fall of the regime,” the Britain-based watchdog said.
Obeidi, 42, was killed by security forces who were hunting for him in Deir Ezzor. He had gone into hiding in August during military operations in the area. The security forces on Sunday also carried out raids and arrests in the flashpoint central province of Homs and in the outskirts of Damascus, with 19 people arrested in Dmeir, the Observatory said.
President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday appointed a committee to draft a new constitution within fours months as activists reported more killings, arrests and gunfire in several protest hubs across Syria. A key demand of the opposition has been the removal of Article 8 of the constitution which stipulates that the Baath party is the sole “leader of state and society,” giving it a monopoly on power over the past four decades.
But what begun as a call for greater freedoms in mid-March has escalated into a demand for the fall of the Assad regime after security forces violently repressed protest hubs. Arab foreign ministers were to meet at the League headquarters in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the bloody crackdown on protests in Syria at the request of the Arab monarchies of the Gulf.