Hundreds of thousands of Syrians protested nine months into their uprising on Friday, demanding the Arab League hasten its response to a bloody crackdown on dissent, activists said. The protests came after Russia, a longtime ally of embattled President Bashar al-Assad, drew a guarded response from Western governments to signs of toughening its stance on Syria at the UN Security Council. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 200,000 protested in the besieged central city of Homs alone, venting their frustration at the Arab League for postponing a meeting on Syria scheduled for Saturday.
“More than 200,000 demonstrators came out in several neighbourhoods of the city after Friday prayers,” the Britain-based organisation said in a statement sent to AFP in Nicosia. Demonstrators also took to the streets of Damascus and the protest hubs of Daraa, Deir Ezzor and Hama, among others, according to the Local Coordination Committees, which organises the protests. Organisers had urged protesters to press the Arab bloc over its postponement of Saturday’s emergency foreign ministers’ meeting to give more time for Damascus to agree to a deal to end the bloodshed to avoid sanctions. They had set the slogan for the protests as: “The Arab League is killing us — enough deadlines.”
