Sat. 16 Apr. 2011

JERUSALEM POST Editor's Notes: As Assad tries to hang on ……………...……1

NYTIMES U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings ……………….7

SYRIA COMMENT “Syria’s New Government,” ………………………………12

TIME MAGAZINE Why Syria's President Doesn't Like Fridays ……………….17

WASHINGTON POST Syrian government holds its fire amid largest protests yet ...20

ECONOMIST Syria's government: Same old, same old …………………...23

GUARDIAN Syria's young cyber activists keep protests in view ………..24 Syria's silent majority will determine next step …………....22 Fears for the Middle East's Christians ……………………...31

LATIMES Syria protests swell as tens of thousands turn out ……….…33 Fear runs deep for Syrian Americans ………………………37

HUFFINGTON POST The Continuing Protests in Arab Countries -- The Case of

Syria ……………………………………………………….41INDEPENDENT

A killing in Gaza that also carries a warning to Israel ……..46

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HOME PAGEEditor's Notes: As Assad tries to hang on A friend of mine recently visited the Syrian capital, where he had previously been a student. This column sets out the impressions of Damascus he conveyed to me on his return.By DAVID HOROVITZ Jerusalem Post,04/15/2011,

In times of tension, on Qamariyah Street, one of the main streets of the Old City, they put down this metal grille with an Israeli flag on it. A great big metal thing laid out on the cobble stones, and you have to walk on it to get past. You have to trample on the Israeli flag.

So, they put it out during the Gaza war. They put it out when [Hezbollah commander Imad] Mughniyeh was blown up across town three years ago – that was during the year when I was studying in Damascus. And, obviously, when I went back just now for a short return visit, the flag was out there again.

Whenever there’s any trouble, the regime blames Israel, blames the Mossad. And out comes the Israeli flag on Qamariyah Street.

The difference this time is that when Bashar [Assad], in his speech at the end of March, slammed “external forces” for organizing the protests – by which he meant the Mossad, of course – people ridiculed the idea. Everybody knows this has nothing to do with the Mossad.

He’s trying to hang on, that’s for sure. And until very recently, in Damascus at least, you really didn’t feel the instability. I was in the city on the day he spoke in parliament, and we didn’t hear that report that some woman tried to attack or stop his car when he drove away. We’d heard a rumor that there had been a gunfight at a government building in Mezze, a suburb of the capital. But nothing more than that.

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What was striking to me on this last trip, though, was the massive upsurge of the Bashar Assad personality cult. Don’t get me wrong, when I was there studying, his face was everywhere, too. Huge posters running up the entire sides of buildings. Banners. Portraits. Serious Bashar. Pensive Bashar. Thumbs-up Bashar. Bashar in his Ray-Bans.

But it’s even more intense now. The man is inescapable. I saw cars where every single panel carried a different portrait of the president. And the Syrian flag, that’s everywhere now too. Playing up the patriotism.

Even in the clubs, they’ve started playing a quasi-patriotic anthem with a house beat. Dance for Syria.

AS A foreigner, doing my year of Arabic study in Damascus, I didn’t feel the repression of the regime, not in the same way as my Syrian friends did. Barely at all, in fact.

If I’d have been caught smoking cannabis, for instance, I imagine I would have been kicked out of the country. And that would have been that. But I have friends who know people who were thrown in jail and simply disappeared for doing that. They haven’t heard from them since. And they don’t dare try to go visit them for fear they might end up meeting the same fate.

A fellow foreign student had the secret police come to his apartment once to tell him to stop throwing parties. He thinks it was the local club owners who informed on him, because they thought he was taking away their clientele. But the mukhabarat just told him to send everyone home. That was it. Plainly, there was a policy in the regime to make foreigners feel comfortable as long as we didn’t push our luck.

But for my Syrian friends, it’s very different. I have friends who have been hit, beaten, arrested. I’d been invited to a bonfire party to celebrate Kurdish new year. It got shut down. A friend was hit by a policeman. Others were taken away for hours.

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Some of my friends are dissidents, sure. Remember, it doesn’t take very much to be a dissident. It would be enough to discuss that the government is not good and that you need change to be considered a dissident.

Unlike most people in Damascus, some of my friends did a little more than that; some of them did go to pro-reform protests. One, who took part in a recent rally in Umayyad Square, said almost all of those who were with her were arrested.

They were all released a few hours later... except for one. He’s still being held, or was as of last week. Maybe his name was on a list, maybe he had been named in the past as a troublemaker? Nobody knows. Nobody ever knows. They were in the square with banners – not attacking the regime, just saying “We need reform.” My friend said she realized it was time to run. Why? Because uniformed security people were picking people up.

So for my Syrian friends, yes, the regime is pretty scary. The emergency laws mean you can’t say anything, anything at all, against the regime. Those laws mean the government can spy on you and arrest you any time they want, for no reason whatsoever. They mean that anyone around you could be reporting on you, and that you can disappear at any moment. So people want change, sure, but it’s scary to demand it.

There are also all kinds of corruptions that people loathe. That you have to pay :a little fee” when you rent an apartment, for the mukhabarat. A little fee to get paperwork done quickly. And that people can and do use the mukhabarat to settle scores; to inform on other people. But that’s minor stuff.

While I was there, all the residents of a UN-rented house were thrown out of the country, in an instant. Good-bye, and no more visas for you. The rumor was that someone had said something a bit offensive, or written something on a blog. But it happened so

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quickly – it always happens so quickly, and you can never quite know why.

DID WE talk about Israel? Even my “dissident” friends would be too scared to so much as muse about what it might be like to visit Tel Aviv, in case someone within earshot worked for the secret police.

A friend of mine – a liberal friend of mine – told me that when she was a child, all of her nightmares were of Israelis coming into her room and shooting her down. That was inculcated at home and at school.

The regime draws a distinction between Jews and Israelis. Another friend went to school with two Jews, she said, and they were treated fine. A local synagogue was robbed while I was there; that wasn’t seen as anything but a crime. But kids are taught that their Israeli counterparts are given rockets to fire. There are often e-mails circulating with photographs of purported Israeli massacres. It’s Jews good, Israelis bad, that’s for sure.

REALLY, I would have told you, until the past few days, that Assad was managing to keep the lid on the discontent. I would have said he was going to prevail.

He’d been pretty clever, allowing a certain amount of reform and relaxation of restrictions.

There’s been a gradual reduction in the length of compulsory military service. It’s meant to be coming down to 18 months in a few weeks’ time. Stateless Kurds are being granted citizenship.

In the Old City over recent years, “After 7” cool bars and clubs have sprung up. It’s very touristy. Those clubs were all still open when I visited now. I played backgammon in the 24-hour, all male bars.

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The entertainment has been affordable for a lot of people, certainly for the middle classes. So people have been able to have some fun, and that reduces the resentments. The middle class was feeling some improvements, so why take the terrible risks involved in putting yourself out there demanding more?

The Internet has been a key barometer. When I first arrived as a student, there were very few Internet cafes, and the Internet functioned incredibly slowly. It took ages to open a site; the system would crash all the time.

Gradually, it improved – more Internet cafes, faster surfing. People started using Facebook and YouTube. Assad’s wife, Asma, was reaching out to Syrians via the Web, filming clips talking about women’s rights, maintaining a Facebook page. She was seen as quite progressive.

But then some of those sites got banned. Someone had posted a picture of Bashar’s wife with her skirt blown up by the wind, or something. That’s what I heard, anyway. I imagine that wasn’t the only consideration.

For a while, still, foreigners could get around the ban. You gave the cafe guy the nod and he would play along. But then that got harder, too. You’d have to show your passport and they’d write down what sites you were going to. Or he’d say he couldn’t do it. It was too risky.

When I went back now, Facebook and YouTube were open. I don’t know if they’ve been shut down in the past few days. And BBC Arabic was being broadcast. That had been banned in the past as well. (The BBC, like other foreign media, has not been allowed to send in correspondents, but its Syrian staffer has been reporting for the BBC’s English service.) There’s been limited footage, from mobile devices, and people speaking from inside apartments, but it’s on. Reporting protests in Deraa. Reporting the

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regime’s claims of agent provocateurs. Al-Jazeera is also giving full coverage, and it was on in Damascus last week.

I think they realized that if they close down Facebook and YouTube and the BBC again, people would get very angry; so they haven’t. They’ve been prepared to take the risk of a little liberalization. This is the regime trying to find the middle ground. Trying to show signs of progressiveness. But it’s a risky, delicate business.

In Damascus, all the shops have TVs up on the wall – even the local bakeries. The owner will look you over when you come in. If you’re a foreigner they won’t care. But when the TV is showing protests in Deraa, if lots of people come in, they’ll turn it off, worried that there might be secret police.

SO, LIKE I said, I’d have thought until recently that Assad would manage to preserve stability. Three months ago, I’d have said the regime was stable, because so many people were ultimately comfortable-ish with the situation, or they could live with it, at least. And the price of any opposition was so high. And they remembered past instabilities and didn’t want a return to that.

Even as recently as last week, while we all knew there was trouble in Kurdish areas to the northwest and Deraa to the south, Damascus seemed calm. (Then came demonstrations at Damascus University on Monday, which involved people from Deraa showing solidarity, with the report of one fatality.)

There were lots of pro-Assad rallies while I was there just now. The police were stopping students on their way to school, telling them, “You’re not expected at school now. You are expected at the pro- Assad rally.”

But his speech certainly didn’t go down well. A week earlier, his adviser Bouthaina Shaaban had promised the imminent cancellation of the emergency laws. So she’d set expectations high. And he promised nothing. People thought it was a farce. One

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of my friends wrote on Facebook something to the effect of “now I see your true smile, Bashar.” He got followed for a while after that.

And the protests aren’t dying out, they’re spreading. Deraa, where a friend of a friend was among those killed, is sealed off. More and more people are getting killed all over the place. Bouthaina said he didn’t give the orders to open fire, but plenty of people think he’s very much in control.

So now, I’m not so sure that Assad can survive this. Every Friday people are getting killed. Other days too.

If you’ve understood what I’ve told you about Syria, you’ll realize that the very fact that these protests keep erupting, well, that’s quite impressive. Until very recently, it would have been unthinkable.

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U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings By RON NIXONNYTIMES,14 Apr. 2011,

WASHINGTON — Even as the United States poured billions of dollars into foreign military programs and anti-terrorism campaigns, a small core of American government-financed organizations were promoting democracy in authoritarian Arab states.

The money spent on these programs was minute compared with efforts led by the Pentagon. But as American officials and others look back at the uprisings of the Arab Spring, they are seeing that the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in

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campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections.

A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.

The work of these groups often provoked tensions between the United States and many Middle Eastern leaders, who frequently complained that their leadership was being undermined, according to the cables.

The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department.

No one doubts that the Arab uprisings are home grown, rather than resulting from “foreign influence,” as alleged by some Middle Eastern leaders.

“We didn’t fund them to start protests, but we did help support their development of skills and networking,” said Stephen McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, a Washington-based advocacy and research group. “That training did play a role in what ultimately happened, but it was their revolution. We didn’t start it.”

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Some Egyptian youth leaders attended a 2008 technology meeting in New York, where they were taught to use social networking and mobile technologies to promote democracy. Among those sponsoring the meeting were Facebook, Google, MTV, Columbia Law School and the State Department.

“We learned how to organize and build coalitions,” said Bashem Fathy, a founder of the youth movement that ultimately drove the Egyptian uprisings. Mr. Fathy, who attended training with Freedom House, said, “This certainly helped during the revolution.”

Ms. Qadhi, the Yemeni youth activist, attended American training sessions in Yemen.

“It helped me very much because I used to think that change only takes place by force and by weapons,” she said.

But now, she said, it is clear that results can be achieved with peaceful protests and other nonviolent means.

But some members of the activist groups complained in interviews that the United States was hypocritical for helping them at the same time that it was supporting the governments they sought to change.

“While we appreciated the training we received through the NGOs sponsored by the U.S. government, and it did help us in our struggles, we are also aware that the same government also trained the state security investigative service, which was responsible for the harassment and jailing of many of us,” said Mr. Fathy, the Egyptian activist.

Interviews with officials of the nongovernmental groups and a review of diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks show that the democracy programs were constant sources of tension between the United States and many Arab governments.

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The cables, in particular, show how leaders in the Middle East and North Africa viewed these groups with deep suspicion, and tried to weaken them. Today the work of these groups is among the reasons that governments in turmoil claim that Western meddling was behind the uprisings, with some officials noting that leaders like Ms. Qadhi were trained and financed by the United States.

Diplomatic cables report how American officials frequently assured skeptical governments that the training was aimed at reform, not promoting revolutions.

Last year, for example, a few months before national elections in Bahrain, officials there barred a representative of the National Democratic Institute from entering the country.

In Bahrain, officials worried that the group’s political training “disproportionately benefited the opposition,” according to a January 2010 cable.

In Yemen, where the United States has been spending millions on an anti-terrorism program, officials complained that American efforts to promote democracy amounted to “interference in internal Yemeni affairs.”

But nowhere was the opposition to the American groups stronger than in Egypt.

Egypt, whose government receives $1.5 billion annually in military and economic aid from the United States, viewed efforts to promote political change with deep suspicion, even outrage.

Hosni Mubarak, then Egypt’s president, was “deeply skeptical of the U.S. role in democracy promotion,” said a diplomatic cable from the United States Embassy in Cairo dated Oct. 9, 2007.

At one time the United States financed political reform groups by channeling money through the Egyptian government.

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But in 2005, under a Bush administration initiative, local groups were given direct grants, much to the chagrin of Egyptian officials.

According to a September 2006 cable, Mahmoud Nayel, an official with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, complained to American Embassy officials about the United States government’s “arrogant tactics in promoting reform in Egypt.”

The main targets of the Egyptian complaints were the Republican and Democratic institutes. Diplomatic cables show that Egyptian officials complained that the United States was providing support for “illegal organizations.”

Gamal Mubarak, the former president’s son, is described in an Oct. 20, 2008, cable as “irritable about direct U.S. democracy and governance funding of Egyptian NGOs.”

The Egyptian government even appealed to groups like Freedom House to stop working with local political activists and human rights groups.

“They were constantly saying: ‘Why are you working with those groups, they are nothing. All they have are slogans,’ ” said Sherif Mansour, an Egyptian activist and a senior program officer for the Middle East and North Africa at Freedom House.

When their appeals to the United States government failed, the Egyptian authorities reacted by restricting the activities of the American nonprofit organizations.

Hotels that were to host training sessions were closed for renovations. Staff members of the groups were followed, and local activists were intimidated and jailed. State-owned newspapers accused activists of receiving money from American intelligence agencies.

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Affiliating themselves with the American organizations may have tainted leaders within their own groups. According to one diplomatic cable, leaders of the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt told the American Embassy in 2009 that some members of the group had accused Ahmed Maher, a leader of the January uprising, and other leaders of “treason” in a mock trial related to their association with Freedom House, which more militant members of the movement described as a “Zionist organization.”

A prominent blogger, according to a cable, threatened to post the information about the movement leaders’ links to Freedom House on his blog.

There is no evidence that this ever happened, and a later cable shows that the group ousted the members who were complaining about Mr. Maher and other leaders.

In the face of government opposition, some groups moved their training sessions to friendlier countries like Jordan or Morocco. They also sent activists to the United States for training.

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“Syria’s New Government,” Ehsani2Syria Comment,15 Apr. 2011,

Since the new Syrian Government was announced, the public reaction has largely been subdued. Most people are mesmerized by the extraordinary events on the ground, nevertheless, let me discuss the people of the new government and what it may mean for Syria’s domestic policy. CVs of all ministers..

The first notable change is the outright elimination of the office of the deputy Prime Minister for Economic affairs previously held by Mr. Dardari. In essence, no one replaced Mr. Dardari as his previous function was eliminated altogether. This is a significant

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change. As many readers of this forum recall, I was a fan of Mr. Dardari. For very understandable reasons, my view was not shared by a large segment of the Syrian population. Over time, Mr. Dardari’s name became synonymous with the two words: “economic reform”. When the public became disillusioned with the so-called reform process or the economy, Mr. Dardari took the brunt of the criticism. In the end, neither the wealthy industrialists nor the poor or the unemployed were happy with his performance. In truth, there were two reasons for Mr. Dardari’s downfall:

1- He was too optimistic when it came to portraying the country’s economic prospects.

2- He took on the hard task of removing key subsidies with minimum engagement with the public about the reasons why those steps were necessary.

For the past five years, discussions on the Syrian economy on this forum highlighted the enormous challenges ahead. While Mr. Dardari and others touted the imminent investments and out-sized growth prospects, many of us were highly skeptical. Regrettably, not much has changed. Indeed, if anything, the recent political events have made the task at hand enormously more challenging.

Suggestions for the New Government:

Engage the public. Explain the economic challenges. Set realistic expectations. Don’t over promise and under deliver. Be decisive and make bold decisions. The new notable additions to the new government are Mr.

Mohammed al-Jlelati (Finance) and Mr. Nedal Alchaar (Economy and Trade). Both are fine individuals and excellent choices in the current circumstances.

Mr. al-Jlelati is known to the public through the Damascus Securities Exchange (DSE) as its acting CEO. He is a hands-on

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Technocrat. He is decisive. All signs are that he is not corrupt. He has been in close contact with the business world. He understands accounting, auditing and corporate governance. Of course, one can argue that his knowledge of finance and markets are limited to the local rather than international arena but this is a rather immaterial shortcoming given the current state of Syria’s financial market development. In sum, it is a good bet that Mr. al-Jlelati will be a technically sound and rather apolitical Finance Minister.

Mr. Nedal Alchaar is a particularly interesting appointment. Originally from Aleppo, he has been based in Bahrain. He has been in charge of the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI). The organization is an independent body established to regulate and standardize the Islamic banking and finance industry in the areas of accounting, auditing, governance, ethics and Sharia. Mr. Alchaar is a highly respected individual in the field of Islamic Banking. Here is a recent quote by him from a year ago:

“The goal is to promote sound practices, not to catch people, and the most important thing is credibility. If this is going to spread and really serve the world and the public, not only Muslims, then it has to be done right. It has to be honest, straight and transparent. In money you always have to be honest, because you cannot repeat your mistakes. People will shy away, leave you and drop out.”Mr. Alchaar is known to hundreds of institutions from over 40 countries. His numerous contacts will serve Syria well as he works to attract foreign investors (particularly gulf-based).

Suggestions to Mr. Alchaar:Now, that there is no longer an office for a Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Trade and the Economy should take the initiative to broaden its responsibilities and become the single go-to office for everything to do with economic policy matters. This will promote better accountability, focus and transparency when it comes to who is in charge and who is

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responsible for both the failure and success of the domestic policy agenda. Mr. Omar Ibrahim Galawanji – Minister for Local Administration: The third notable change in the government was the removal of the powerful Mr. Tamer Hajje. Just 24 hours before the formation of the new government, the sitting Governor of Aleppo issued a stinging criticism of Mr. Hajje and Otri about their delayed response to his repeated calls to accelerate the Tanzeem plans for his city. Mr. Omar Ibrahim Galawanji is now the new Minister for Local Administration replacing Mr. Tamer Hajje. This will be a key Ministry to watch as it is in charge of setting policy for the entire real estate sector and city planning for the country. It is arguably one of the most important ministries in the government.

Mrs. Lamia Asi: The fourth important change involved the Tourism Ministry. Mrs. Lamia Asi is now in charge. She had briefly run the Ministry of the Economy. She of course used to be the country’s Ambassador to Malaysia and is known to be a big fan of that Asian country’s development performance. She is also known to be practical and not dogmatic.

Suggestions to Mrs. Asi:A team of Syrian lawyers and Business men have recently made a trip to Turkey and met with that country’s Tourism Ministry. Turkey of course has done an outstanding job in attracting international chains to develop its coast by building as many as 490 five star resorts all over the country. How did they achieve this? By offering investors free land and an attractive 2% subsidized financing for 50% of the total cost of the project. Syria must start thinking along these lines. The country’s tourism industry needs a massive shot in the arm. The Turkish model must be studied in great detail. Reputable International investors must be given extremely attractive terms to help entice them to come and ensure the growth of this critical sector. The tourism ministry must stop becoming a profit center that squeezes investors for extra income and unattractive terms. A final word:

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Contrary to the criticism that the new government may have received from some corners, I believe that the mix struck the right tone. Almost all the Ministers have an excellent reputation when it comes to corruption and reputation. Most are technocrats and professionally sound. None seem to have extreme political orientations or leaning.

Having said this, we should not be fooled into thinking that this or any other government can turn Syria’s economic prospects around anytime soon. The challenges will be enormous. There is no magic formula. Years of economic mismanagement cannot be undone without pain or sacrifice. The recent population explosion is a tremendous burden. Moreover, the current political climate will make it very hard to relieve the pressures on the fiscal front when it comes to the expensive subsidies and the bleeding in the public sector. Finding the revenues to finance these prohibitive programs will be very hard. No one wants to pay taxes because the government does not provide enough services. The government cannot provide the services because it cannot (or is unwilling to) collect enough taxes from the wealthy. No one wants to lose the subsidies. No one has the stomach to privatize the vast inefficient public sector and save the treasury the yearly red ink. As revenues from natural resources dwindle, the country cannot keep paying out more than it takes forever. The time will soon come when the country either has to borrow or print money to pay its bills. The above vicious circle has to be broken. A new virtuous circle has to start taking hold. In the meantime, the new government must level with the Syrian people and explain the enormous challenges and policy dilemmas that it faces. Again, the following principals ought to be a good place to start:

Engage the public. Explain the economic challenges. Set realistic expectations. Don’t over promise and under deliver. Be decisive and make bold decisions. Cut red tape and streamline the government bureaucracy

(New Ministry?).

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Cut interest rates sharply and slowly weaken the exchange rate of the Syrian Pound.

Cut taxes to 10% and make sure you collect taxes from the rich.

Institute a real estate tax on high end properties that will fund local infrastructure.

Tackle the public sector and start a national dialogue on the pros and cons of privatization.

Give the Prime Minister and his cabinet the room to make policy outside of the dictate of the regional command of the party.

Use already established best practices when formulating new laws by working with international organizations like the WTO and the IFC.

Make the rule of law priority number one. Increase the compensation of the judiciary by at least 300%.

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Why Syria's President Doesn't Like Fridays By Rania Abouzeid Time Magazine,Friday, Apr. 15, 2011

Today was not a good Friday for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Across Syria, tens of thousands of people once again streamed into the streets. Even though the demonstrations have now become daily occurences, the numbers swell as Syrians take advantage of Friday prayers and the government-recognized right to gather at mosques for worship to then march out in protest.

As with previous Fridays, the geographical breadth of the uprising has grown — from the Mediterranean coast to the Iraqi border. There were marches in Dara'a in the south, where anti-government protests first erupted a month ago, in the northeastern coastal cities of Banias and Lattakia, in the predominantly Kurdish region of

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Hasaka in the north and in the capital Damascus itself and many of its surrounding suburbs. Large demonstrations were also reported in the mainly Druze city of Suweida and in the country's second city Aleppo, already an established hotbed of resistance to the ruling Ba'ath Party. Most eloquently, the town of Hama saw protests as well. In 1982, it was the target of a brutal crackdown by Bashar's father Hafez al-Assad against the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, a massacre that resulted in perhaps 10,000 people dead.

Perhaps most significantly, video footage posted online showed tens of thousands of men marching from several suburbs around Damascus toward the capital's Abbasid Square. Security forces initially prevented the crowd from reaching its destination, beating the men back with batons and firing tear gas at protesters, but then things changed. The government had apparently allowed the demonstration to proceed, according to Joshua Landis, a Syria expert, professor at the University of Oklahoma, and author of the SyriaComment blog. "At some point it will be up to [the protesters] how many people come out," he told TIME. "The government is organizing a pro-government rally on the 17th. It seems to be on the way to becoming a numbers game."

There were also reports of clashes elsewhere in Syria, although casualty figures remained sketchy. Still, in contrast to last Friday, when some 26 people were killed in Dara'a alone following Friday prayers, this week, media reports suggested that there was no sign of army and security forces in that southern city. On Thursday Assad had met with leaders from Dara'a, reportedly promising to lift the 48-year-emergency law "soon" as well as pledging other unannounced reforms that appeared to placate the delegation. Assad has offered minor concessions, some local, others national, in a bid to appease growing protester anger. For example, he has replaced the much-feared state security forces deployed in Banias with regular army troops, who are largely more respected than feared. He has also unveiled a new Cabinet, a gesture that was, however, largely viewed as cosmetic given that most power resides in his hands. He has also declared an amnesty for "all

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detainees in connection with the latest events, who have not committed criminal acts," the state SANA news agency reported late Thursday. The statement did not mention how many detainees would be released, nor how many will remain in custody.

International criticism, meanwhile, stepped up a notch with the release of a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The document detailed hundreds of arbitrary detentions of protesters, journalists and lawyers and their "torture and ill-treatment" at the hands of Syrian authorities. According to the report, the Syrian regime, never one to respond meekly to dissent, detained and beat civilians as young as 12, subjecting them to torture "including electro-shock devices, cables, and whips." Many were forced into overcrowded cells and "deprived of sleep, food, and water," it said, while some told the New York-based rights watchdog that they were blindfolded and handcuffed for days, accused of being Israeli and Lebanese spies. One detainee, "a 17-year-old, could hardly move — he needed assistance sitting down and standing up," the report read, as a result of his beating in detention.

The majority of detainees were forced to sign confessions they were not allowed to read, as well as to promise not to participate in future protests, HRW said. "None were allowed to have any contact with relatives or lawyers while in detention, and their families were not informed of their whereabouts. There was no response to the report from the Syrian government.

Dozens of short videos uploaded onto the internet appear to document the degree of impunity enjoyed by Syria's security forces. Some were filmed by protesters, others apparently by security forces. In one disturbing snippet, reportedly taken on Thursday in the town of Bayda, near Banias, and released Friday, dozens of handcuffed men lie flat on their stomachs as men wearing army green flak jackets and irregular uniforms — some wear jeans — stand over them with AK-47s. A handcuffed man attempts to turn around only to be flipped over by a gunman, who then steps on his back, before a colleague repeatedly kicks the man on the ground in the face while another beats him with a thick

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stick. One gunman, referred to as "Ali" by the man capturing the footage, walks on the backs of the detainees. "Hey Ali, come here, film me," the cameraman says, before handing over the device, possibly a mobile phone. The black-clad cameraman, a fresh-faced youth, stands on the buttocks of a detainee, rifle in hand. "Come on, step on them, those traitorous dogs!" Ali says, as the young man obliges. Chants of "God, Syria, and Bashar only!" can be heard over the sound of sticks hitting flesh.

Rights campaigners say the state's increasingly heavy-handed attempts to quell the dissent is merely serving to intensify it. The protests appear to be gaining momentum, although not yet to a degree seen in the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt that overthrew those countries' long-ruling presidents. Still, the cry of the so-called Arab Spring "the people want the regime to fall" is now reverberating across Syria, a state so formidably repressive that human rights activists do not even know how many detention centers it has.

The question now is, who will buckle first; the regime or the protesters? "So long as the military remains united and backs the regime, the state will have the advantage in the use of force," Landis, the Syria expert, says, "unless the opposition can convince the silent majority in the cities to come out onto the streets."

The opposition's best bet, Landis says, is to disrupt the economy. "The Syrian economy is weak and cannot sustain the present level of disruption. If the economy begins to fail, more people will join the opposition and look for alternatives to the Assad regime."

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Syrian government holds its fire amid largest protests yet By Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post,Friday, April 15,

BEIRUT — Protests in Syria swelled Friday to their largest numbers so far, as tens of thousands of demonstrators marched on

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the capital, Damascus, and in dozens of cities and towns across the country, witnesses said.

But unlike in earlier protests, state security forces appeared to withhold lethal force, firing into the air instead of on crowds — a possible sign that the government might be reassessing its approach to the uprisings that started here a month ago.

“It is an amazingly big day, both in the number of protesters and the number of towns and cities being bigger than ever before, and in that the regime response and the way they dealt with the protesters was exceptional,” said Wassim Tarif, director of Insan, a Syrian human rights organization. “This is the first Friday that we don’t have reports of people being killed in the country.”

Protests were reported in 46 towns and cities, including Daraa, Homs, Baniyas, Latakia, Aleppo and the Kurdish cities of Qumishli and Hasageh.

But although there were no reports of killings, the government arrested 172 people early Friday morning in and around Daraa, the city where the uprisings began and the focal point for many of the protests, Tarif said, adding that 43 people were arrested in the city of Sweida.

The Damascus march, which marked the first large-scale protests in the capital, began in Douma and picked up participants as it passed through the Damascus suburbs, witnesses said.

Shouting, “Freedom, freedom!” and “National unity, Muslims and Christians!” the crowd swelled as it moved toward al-Abbasiyeen Square in northern Damascus, where police blocked protesters from entering, witnesses said.

It was impossible to independently confirm the number of protesters beacuse foreign media have been restricted from reporting in Syria.

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In Homs, protesters set fire to a statue of Hafiz al-Assad, the late father of the current president, said Tarif, who witnessed it. “They destroyed it. It was amazing,” he said, laughing.

Until Friday, the movement in Syria had been marked by government crackdowns, with security forces opening fire on crowds and arresting people en masse. In recent days, in apparent attempts to placate protesters, the government released many detainees, and on Thursday it announced a new cabinet.Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, had been widely anticipated as an indicator of whether the opposition movement would subside or continue to gain steam.

The large turnout “means that people didn’t respond to the violence of the authorities,” said Razan Zaitouneh, a human rights activist and lawyer who was near the Damascus protests. “The authorities were trying to make people scared, but people responded in the opposite way, by going out in larger numbers.”

However, it is unclear if those numbers will be large enough to tip the balance in favor of protesters, said Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

“There’s a serious issue for the regime in terms of people demonstrating throughout the country, but who’s doing it and what’s the extent of it is very hard to know,” he said. But, he added, “The longer it goes, the more difficult it is for the regime to calm things down.”

There has been a marked difference in the tenor of the protests. Whereas earlier ones called for greater freedoms and the lifting of a decades-long emergency law, more recent ones have increasingly called for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, 45.

“From alley to alley, from house to house, we want you out, Bashar,” Damascus protesters chanted Friday, playing on Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s vow to rid his country of rebels.

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Assad’s government, considered one of the most repressive in the Middle East, has close ties with Iran, and on Thursday the Obama administration accused Iran of helping Syria stamp out the recent protests, a charge Syrian officials denied.

A Human Rights Watch report issued Friday said that Syrian security and intelligence services have arrested and tortured hundreds of protesters across the country since anti-government demonstrations began last month. Rights groups say 200 people have died in the the protests.

Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported that one soldier was killed and another wounded Friday morning in the port city of Baniyas, the site of earlier demonstrations this week.

The agency seemed confused on Friday, Tarif said, showing footage of protests but characterizing them as pro-regime, and hanging up on interviews with the Arabic news organizations al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya.

“Their strategy wasn’t totally clear,” he said. “It was like they were waiting for instructions.”

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Syria's government: Same old, same old Apr 15th 2011, The Economist online | DAMASCUS

ON THURSDAY afternoon, Syria's president, Bashar Assad, announced the formation of a new cabinet. The government, which resigned on March 29th, has little power to effect change. It is drawn almost exclusively from the ruling Baath party regime and power rests largely in the hands of the president. Those protesting have been less concerned with getting a new cabinet than with getting some meaningful political reforms. Still, the

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shake-up gives some indication of Mr Assad's commitment to reform

The protesters are likely to be disappointed. Many cabinet members have kept their old positions or been given new ones. The former deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Abdullah Dardari, the main cheerleader for economic liberalisation and a rare non-Baathist viewed as the main reformer of the past government, has been ousted.

Local cynics point to three more bad omens: the prime minister, Adel Safar, appointed on April 3rd, is the former agriculture minister in a country suffering a drought that has been exacerbated by the authorities' bungling. The new interior minister, Mohammed Ibrahim Shaar, is a former officer of the intelligence services, hated by protesting and non-protesting Syrians alike. Imad Sabouni stays in charge of telecommunications, a field dominated by Mr Assad's cousin, Rami Makhlouf.

Protesters are demanding major reforms such as the lifting of emergency law and an end to untrammeled powers of the security agencies. Whether Mr Assad is willing to make these changes, and whether he can do so without undercutting the foundations of his authoritarian regime, is unclear.

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Syria's young cyber activists keep protests in view Citizen journalists defy threats of violence to replace harassed local reporters and banned foreign media with web technologyHugh Macleod and a correspondent in Damascus Guardian,15 Apr. 2011,

He's got sim cards and pseudonyms, cigarettes and light fingers that dance across the touchpad in a mad ballet of digital information sharing. "Now I'm receiving reports of four people killed in Deraa. They opened fire there now," says Rami Nakhle.

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Staring down at his laptop, Nakhle reconnects, for the eighth time that afternoon, a Skype call to a protester in Banias, a port on Syria's western Mediterranean coast. "Now I will tell demonstrators in Banias there are four killed in Deraa," he says, sucking back on a cigarette.

On the laptop screen is the pixelated image of a man holding an olive branch in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, which he is using as a video camera to stream, via the social media programme Qik, live images of tens of thousands of protesters in Banias directly into Nakhle's laptop, ready for uploading to YouTube.

Over a faltering digital connection, Nakhle tells his colleague in Banias about the deaths in Deraa. The message is relayed to a protester with a megaphone, who broadcasts it to the masses. Ten minutes later the reaction comes in: "OK, now we can hear chanting in Banias, 'With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice to you Deraa.' And they are in Banias, a different side of the country!"

Among unprecedented and growing protests against the 41-year dictatorship of the Assad family over Syria, social media mavens such as Nakhle are emerging as the thread that binds disparate protests together. Foreign media have been all but barred from reporting from Syria and dozens of local and Arab journalists have been arrested or expelled. In their place, Syria's cyber activists are using social media and technology to ensure reporting gets out, linking the protesters on the street with the eyes and ears of the world.

It's a risky business. Nakhle, who was known as Malath Omran until his real identity was made public last week by the Syrian secret police, lives in a secret location in Beirut and receives regular threats on his Facebook and Twitter accounts from what he believes are Syrian security agents, which range from the comic – "Have you started using Pampers yet?" – to the chilling.

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"My sister was arrested for two months and 24 days just for saying she didn't think the president was very smart during a conversation at Damascus University," says Nakhle.

"So Syrian security posted a message on my wall saying, 'You have until midnight tonight to announce your withdrawal from the Syrian revolution or we will get her.'"

Another activist, a 26-year-old woman based in Damascus who did not want to be named, and who uploads protest footage to YouTube, explained how the Syrians have learned from their Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts.

"We use a proxy server and change it almost every day," she said. "Today most young Syrians have mobile phones with high quality cameras so each one has become like a journalist. I upload videos and statements from internet cafes. I leave after 10 minutes and don't come back to the same one for a long time."

Reporters Without Borders lists Syria as one of 10 countries that are active "internet enemies". Hundreds of websites remain blocked, most of them run by political movements perceived to be opposed to the regime in Damascus.

Until last month, Syria held one of the eldest and the youngest political prisoners in the world, 82-year-old Haithem Maleh, a veteran human rights campaigner who was released, and 19-year-old student blogger Tal al-Mallouhi, who remains behind bars.

"Many of my friends were arrested in the last few days, especially the activists behind the computers," says Razan Zeitouna, a lawyer and human rights researcher who has played a key role inside Syria connecting activists with the media outside. She has been interrogated many times by the secret police.

"Each time they tell me, 'This is the last time you get out. Next time you'll never see the sun again.'" But, like other activists,

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Zeitouna fears for the life of the historic movement she has played a part in. "We lost so many young people in our mission," she says, pausing for a moment on the Skype line. "The thought of us not achieving our goals would mean it had all been for nothing. That's what makes us scared."

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Syria's silent majority will determine next step as protests growSyria's protest movement is far from uniform, and divisions are becoming apparent as it gathers momentumKatherine Marsh in Damascus Guardian,15 Apr. 2011,

It was an episode that at any other time in Syria's history might have gone unnoticed. A month ago, a group of Syrian children, aged between 10 and 13, daubed anti-regime graffiti on a wall in a dusty town near the Jordan border. The security forces made arrests. Relatives of the children protested. They were insulted and beaten.

Syrians have become used to this kind of brutality during the 11-year rule of Bashar al-Assad. But amid the revolt sweeping the Arab world the incident quickly turned explosive. "It was unintentional," said Omar, 29, who identified himself as a family friend of the children in the original protest. "They saw on television Egypt and Tunisia and copied it."

In the month since then, protests have swirled around Syria, raising questions about the durability of the Assad regime. A rally in Deraa ended with six people being killed by security forces. The movement spread to other areas – Homs, the Damascus suburb Douma, Aleppo and Latakia in the north, Banias on the coast. Every time the security services tried to quash the protests,

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it merely provoked more unrest. The number of protests has increased since, as has the death toll, which is now estimated at more than 200.

Assad has tried waving threadbare olive branches. On Thursday he offered a prisoner release and appointed a new cabinet. But on Friday security forces used teargas to disperse tens thousands of protesters in Damascus in what was reported to be the largest demonstration in a month of unrest. Thousands more once again took to the streets in towns and cities from Deraa to Banias.

The demonstrators in Damascus held up yellow cards, in a football-style warning to President Assad, AP news agency said. "This is our first warning, next time we will come with the red cards," one protester said.

"We have always felt repression and lack of dignity but felt scared to do anything. Deraa changed that," said Mohammed, a 22-year-old student from the Damascus suburb of Madamiya where early on protests spilled out of mosques in solidarity with the "martyrs" of Deraa.

So who are the forces ranged against the Syrian president and can they follow the example of Tunisia and Egypt in ridding the region of another despot?

As in Egypt and Tunisia, anger has been simmering for years in Syria over a lack of jobs, corruption and nepotism and political repression at the hands of unaccountable security services.

Over the past three years prices have shot up, adding to economic woes, while a burgeoning youth population connected to the world through television and the internet has seen life outside. "The killing of people caused something to snap," said Mohammed. "As soon as I chanted for freedom and Deraa I felt like a human being for the first time in my life."

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People like Mohammed form the majority of the protest movement – apolitical, informed, frustrated, mostly between 20 and 40 and largely male. There is much to complain about: a poor education system that fails to equip them for the job market, the nepotism and cronyism that disqualifies them from many opportunities, an inability to marry because they cannot afford a house.

Women have been less visible, though this week they turned out in their hundreds to call for the release of men rounded up in Beida. "We no longer trust the president," said one, who did not want to be named. "We lack freedoms and corruption is everywhere, and the youths have demonstrated to address these issues peacefully. They [the security forces] faced them with fire."

She pointed out that her brother was summoned by the Syrian intelligence 30 years ago and has never returned home. "We do not know if he's dead or alive," she said.

This cohort has been bolstered by a small but growing group of lawyers, artists and aid workers; teaching Iraqi refugees or taking food to victims of Syria's drought. "I have long been trying to organise protests," said one former NGO worker in Damascus, who is subject to a travel ban, one of the Assad regime's tools of repression. "But until now people have been too scared – Egypt, Tunisia and Libya gave us inspiration whilst the killings caused anger to outweigh fear."

Activists like him have helped to organise further protests through a series of secret chatrooms online, and others such as Razan Zeitouneh and Wissam Tarif, two outspoken human rights activists who unusually go by their real names, seek to document the violence and garner media attention. In the last fortnight, members of the Damascus Declaration, a grouping of liberal and Islamist activists, have thrown their weight behind the protesters.

The movement is far from uniform, and divisions are becoming apparent as it grows. Calls for toppling Assad and defacing

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billboards of him are on the rise, but some protesters have specific demands. In Douma, some have called for the release of political prisoners and an end to shootings, while Mohammed says he wants "freedom" but is not yet sure what that means – "If good reforms are made, that may be enough."

And it would be wrong to say the movement is rampant or widespread. It may count many tens of thousands of supporters. But Syria is a country of more than 20 million people. And there may be as many Assad loyalists as there are protesters, people who through genuine admiration or fear of the alternative support the president.

Despite protesters from the Sunni majority being joined by some Kurds, Christians and reportedly Alawites from Assad's minority sect, they and many other Sunnis fear the rise of conservative Islam if Syria's secular state were to fall. Others see Iraq and Lebanon as an augury. "We may not agree with everything, but the president has kept it safe for us," said one Christian in Damascus's Old City. A young female Muslim added: "He is young and understands us and is struggling against a regime he unintentionally inherited from his father."

Amid a standoff between protesters and the government, what comes next will depend on the large silent majority, including Sunni businessmen and religious figures. Almost all have the same aspirations to a life with dignity and without repression and for a chance to have more control over their lives and their country.

"I changed my mind after the speech he [Assad] gave," said Abdullah, a 30-year-old office worker who described himself as previously neutral. "I am thinking of joining the protest because I don't think he will – or even can – make changes." Kurds turned out to rally last week despite Assad's move to grant citizenship to tens of thousands of stateless Kurds. But others say protesting is not the way. "Protests have not been about people changing their opinions but breaking the shackles stopping them from expressing them," said Ahmed, a 20-year-old from the impoverished eastern

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region. "I feel the same but I want to study and change things peacefully."

Assad can fall back on a regime apparatus that, despite occasional reports of reluctance by army conscripts to open fire on protesters, is loyal. The family has populated the upper echelons of the military and intelligence with Alawites who fear persecution if a Sunni majority takes hold.

There are also Sunni loyalists in the regime who through a system of carefully doled out benefits are discouraged from leaving Assad's side. Each time they take to the streets, Syria's protesters know they have a hard battle ahead with an unpredictable end.

Katherine Marsh is a pseudonym for a journalist living in Damascus

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Fears for the Middle East's Christians in the wake of the Arab springThe revolutions in the Arab world may further weaken Christianity's presence in the regionGerald Butt,Guardian,16 Apr. 2011,

The Arab world is turning over a new page at last. Not since Britain and France created nation states in the Middle East at the end of the first world war has the region experienced such an upheaval. It is still early to say what will be drawn on that blank page in terms of the shape and character of political systems. But as numerous groups jostle to form parties to contest elections, there are signs that the Middle East's tiny and dwindling Christian community will not be among the beneficiaries. Egypt is a key country to watch as it sweeps away the legacy 0f the Hosni Mubarak era, characterised by suppression of any group that challenged the dominance of the ruling party. With the president

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gone, the shackles are off. Among those exploiting this freedom are Egypt's fundamentalist Islamic groups – the Muslim Brotherhood, Gama'a al-Islamiya and others. All stress, as they form political parties, that they support the idea of a civil, rather than an Islamic, state.

In the past, Gama'a al-Islamiya carried out acts of terrorism – including killing 58 foreign tourists at Luxor in 1997 – as part of its campaign to establish Islamic rule in Egypt. So how come the change of heart? "We want a civil state ruling with justice," said one of its leaders, Naji Ibrahim. "We are not afraid of this freedom because we are holding the strong message of Islam, which has an inherent strength that is stronger than any other idea."

So, a civil state to begin with, but ultimately the implication is that Islam would be triumphant. With the Muslim Brotherhood, too, the most organised group, the professed desire to see secular rule continue in Egypt runs counter to its charter. This envisages an Islamic state throughout the Middle East, while at home the Brotherhood aims to "convey the mission of Islam to the people as a whole". There is no mention of Islam's duty to protect ahl al-Kitab (people of the book, Christians and Jews).

So, not surprisingly, Coptic Christians are suspicious. Naguib Gobraiel, a lawyer for the Coptic Church, believes the Muslim Brothers are seeking "to delude people and make them think that their paradigm is not fundamentalist but conforms with the values of citizenship".

But by forming their own – faith-based – parties, the Islamic groups are only conforming to the pattern elsewhere in the Arab world where democracy already exists. In Iraq and Lebanon politics is ensnared by sectarian divisions. As Iraqi Sunnis and Shias vie for power, the country remains in a state of collapse. Those at the bottom of the heap – including the Christian minority – are unrepresented and vulnerable. The Christian exodus continues. In Lebanon the growing power of the Shia Hezbollah organisation is challenging the Sunni establishment and the

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increasingly nervous Christians. Again, the Christian community is in decline.

The irony is that Arab Muslims and Christians took to the streets together en masse to demand change – without heed of political or religious leaders. What is needed on the new blank page of Arab politics is a movement that can incorporate the diversity of these protesters, cutting across sectarian lines.

In the absence of such a movement, Arab Christians risk being driven still further to the margins of society, while Sunni and Shia Muslims compete for influence. The most tempting option for Christians, under these circumstances, would be an air ticket out, weakening still more Christianity's presence in the region where it was born. So, the "Christian" west should, perhaps, be careful in applauding too soon the historic changes in the Middle East.

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Syria protests swell as tens of thousands turn out Demonstrations are reported across the country, including in Damascus, a day after concessions from President Bashar Assad. 'People are not afraid anymore,' says a human rights lawyer.Meris Lutz and Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles TimesApril 16, 2011

Reporting from BeirutAntigovernment demonstrations sweeping Syria appeared to have crossed a threshold in size and scope, with protesters battling police near the heart of the capital and the protest movement uniting people from different regions, classes and religious backgrounds against the regime.

Tens of thousands of people turned out across the country Friday, dismissing minor concessions offered a day earlier by President Bashar Assad. The demonstrators called for freedom, the release

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of political prisoners and, in some instances, the downfall of the government, echoing demands for change across the Arab world.

Momentum seemed to be with the protesters. Friday's demonstrations showed vitality, organization, media savvy — and a sense of humor. In the city of Duma, pictures posted to the Internet showed hundreds of marchers holding up yellow "penalty" cards in a soccer-inspired caution to the government that the movement is losing patience over unfulfilled promises of reform.

But it was the spread of large-scale protests into new corners of Damascus, the capital, and Assad's seat of power, that underscored the growing depth of the protest movement.

"Today was the first time such a huge protest showed up in the capital," said Razan Zaitouneh, a human rights lawyer in Damascus. "It's a clear response to the authorities' claim that people will be satisfied with its silly reforms like changing the government.

"It also means that people are not afraid anymore," she said, "even after all the violence, the terrible torture of detainees, in spite of all that, people are still going to the streets in larger and larger numbers."The government flooded city streets with plainclothes and uniformed security officers. Nearly 150 plainclothes officers stood outside the capital's historic Umayyad Mosque as Friday prayers ended, menacing worshipers as they walked out and overwhelming them with pro-government chants.

Assad's new Cabinet lineup and the release of some prisoners failed to mollify demonstrators, as did an earlier effort to dissuade new protests by depicting the antigovernment movement as led by foreign agents and Islamic extremists.

Assad, his father, Hafez Assad, before him and their Baath Party elite have held power for decades with the implicit threat that any

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weakening of the state would plunge the nation, made up of a mosaic of religions and ethnicities, into the kind of sectarian strife that has plagued neighbors Lebanon and Iraq.

For now, the protest movement shows no sign of religious or class divisions. In Dariya and Moadamyeh, mixed Christian and Muslim suburbs of Damascus, demonstrators held banners reading, "No to sectarianism."

"What is clear is that it's not an Islamist revolution and it's not a sectarian revolution, even though the regime tries to do everything to present it that way," said Mohammed Ali Atassi, a Syrian journalist in Beirut. "I'm not surprised how aggressive the regime is in its criminal actions. I'm surprised at how peaceful the protesters are. They understand that any violence coming from them is the end of the movement."

Atassi suggested that a democratic transition in Syria might resemble the course of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, which brought down longtime leaders, rather than the Libyan or Bahraini uprisings, which appear to have exacerbated tribal and sectarian differences.

"It's impossible for the Libyan scenario," he said. "This is a country with 22 million people and two big cities with millions of people. We're an urban society."

Friday's demonstrations also showed the growing geographic reach of the dissent. Large demonstrations were reported in the suburbs of Damascus; the cities of Dara, Homs, Aleppo, Baniyas, Dair Alzour and Latakia, where at least two were reported killed; and smaller towns and villages.

Hundreds turned out in the west-central city of Hama, the site of a brutal crackdown by Assad's father against Islamic activists in 1982, which had been quiet until now. Amateur videos posted online show protesters there shouting, "Our blood and our souls for you, Baniyas," referring to the northern coastal city where

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several people were killed and hundreds arrested over the last week.

Hundreds of protesters clapped and cheered in another northern coastal city, Jableh, online videos show. In the ethnic Kurdish city of Qamishli in the north, protesters took to the streets despite a recent government decision to grant citizenship to nearly 300,000 Kurds who had been counted as illegal immigrants for decades.

Though inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the protests in Syria appear to be developing their own themes and slogans.

"The people want to topple the regime," one protester chanted in an echo of the Egyptian uprising, before the crowd erupted in what has become the simple rallying cry of the Syrian uprising: "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!"

"My gut feeling is that this is just going to get worse: the number of people, the breaking of the wall of fear, the weekly expansions of protests," said a longtime Middle East analyst in Beirut, who asked that his name not be published for fear of being targeted by the Syrian government.

"It's like a virus in the way it is spreading," he said. "The wall of fear is declining and not increasing. Every time there's an incident and people are killed, anger rises. I don't see how the protests are going to de-escalate."

As night fell Friday, protesters battled with police in an attempt to break through to the center of Damascus. Security forces, which have allegedly killed at least 200 people and jailed hundreds of others since the unrest began, responded mostly with tear gas fire and batons, which seemed only to embolden the protesters.

And in a sign of division among government loyalists, state television journalist Maher Deeb quit in protest, posting a scathing resignation letter on his Facebook page.

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"I am no longer able to bear the failed approach of the official Syrian press ... in its coverage of the popular protests ... as well as its failure to cover the practices of some security branches and popular committees that torture, arrest and attack protesters," the letter, in Arabic, reads.

"Some sick, high-ranking security officers are acting on their own by killing citizens in violation of directives given by the president, and therefore I find myself standing side by side with the Syrian Arab people."

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Fear runs deep for Syrian Americans Worries of reprisal lead many to shy away from taking part in local solidarity rallies.By Raja Abdulrahim, Los Angeles TimesApril 16, 2011 After the Egyptian revolution began in January, Garden Grove resident Samira Hammado, her Egyptian husband and their five children attended weekly demonstrations in Los Angeles and Orange County, often joining more than a hundred people gathered to support the protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

But when anti-government protests broke out recently in Hammado's native Syria, she found herself one of just a few dozen Southern Californians who showed up regularly for small Syrian solidarity demonstrations.

At one rally in Anaheim, they faced off against protesters backing the authoritarian regime of President Bashar Assad. Some took photos of the anti-regime demonstrators, threatening to cause trouble for their families still in Syria. A few people hid their faces behind sunglasses or signs. Many others said they had stayed away after hearing rumors that Syrian security agents would monitor the protests.

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After Hammado later posted some anti-regime comments on Facebook, she said a friend asked her, "Aren't you afraid?"

"I don't know why the fear is still in our hearts, still even with the distance," said Hammado, 44, who is a stay-at-home mom.

When anti-government protests erupted across the Middle East this spring, it was unclear whether Syria would join. No one attended the first planned protest in Damascus in early February. And Assad quickly announced several reforms — including raising public worker subsidies, lowering food prices and allowing greater access to such previously banned websites as Facebook and YouTube — in what was seen as an attempt to placate Syrians before they rose up.

But a number of Syrian Americans and Syrian expatriates interviewed said the main factor in delaying Syrian participation in the anti-government protests — at home and abroad — has been the fear many hold toward the regime and its secret police. They point to the brutal response by Assad's father to an anti-government uprising in 1982, when security forces killed more than 10,000 people in the city of Hama.

Since March 15, however, protests across Syria have continued to grow. On Friday, thousands turned out in demonstrations in several cities, including the capital, Damascus.

Now, many Syrian Americans say they are waiting to see Assad's response to the protests in their homeland before deciding whether to support them publicly in this country. On Saturday, solidarity protests are planned in many U.S. cities, including in West Los Angeles.

"We were raised on this fear. It was a package we brought with us from Syria," said one man, who immigrated to the U.S. decades ago but asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. When he

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asked other Syrians if they would be willing to be interviewed, he said they laughed.

Hammado was 12 and living with her family in Idlib, a village on the outskirts of Aleppo, when her two oldest brothers were arrested and accused of membership in the opposition Muslim Brotherhood.

She said her family has never seen the men again and doesn't know if they are alive.

When Assad became president after his father's death in 2000, he promised to release political prisoners. For days, Hammado's mother couldn't sleep, saying she wanted to be awake in case her sons came home.

"She died and her heart was burning," said Hammado, who left Syria in 1989 and has returned just once.

Now, whenever Hammado calls her two sisters and two brothers who still live in Syria, they assure her that everything is fine, although she knows they are afraid to speak openly.

Were she still living there, she said, she doesn't know if she would be willing to join the protests in which at least 200 are said to have been killed since the unrest began. But here, she feels compelled to attend the rallies held in solidarity.

"Our families are over there fighting with their blood and this is the least we can do," she said. "Honestly they are heroes. Death doesn't matter to them anymore."

At her children's weekend Islamic school, she has chided other mothers who have cautioned her against speaking publicly about the protests.

"A few more people wake up out of that fear every day; it's not automatic," said Mohja Kahf, a Syrian American author and

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professor of comparative literature at the University of Arkansas. She said it would take time to change people's "enslaved mentality."

"We have an ocean in between and still we're going to be afraid?" asked Samir Hammado, Samira's older brother who lives in Pomona. "That's what brought us to this situation that we are so afraid that we cannot even speak to ourselves."

Samir Hammado, who works in insurance, hasn't been back to Syria since he left in 1985, believing he would be arrested upon his return. At one point during the uprisings in the early 1980s, he said, he and five of his brothers were all in prison, though he was released within days.

From time to time, he said, his family in Syria is still questioned about him and two brothers who now live in Canada.

At night, after her children have gone to bed, Samira Hammado goes online to read the latest news and posts on Facebook. A few days ago, in response to a post by Syrian presidential advisor Bouthaina Shaaban that threatened to "cut off the hand" of those who intervene in Syria, Hammado commented that all who have killed Syrian youth who call for freedom should have their own hands cut off.

Hammado's Facebook account is not under her real name, however. "We didn't want to cause them any problems," she said of her family.

But Hammado decided to allow her name to be published for this account, after weighing the potential for harm against what others like her are risking in Syria.

"Maybe — God willing — by the time I go back, there will be a new leader," she said.

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The Continuing Protests in Arab Countries -- The Case of Syria Amir MadaniAuthor, 'Le Letture Persiane'Huffington Post,15 Apr. 2011,

About 1915, as it was becoming clear that the Ottoman Empire would not survive World War I, the British and French targeted the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The book "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" by the British archaeologist and secret agent T.E. Lawrence, famously known as Lawrence of Arabia, explains in detail the entire history of the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans that began in 1916 with the support of the colonial powers.

According to Lawrence's intelligence memo of January 1916, the revolt would be

beneficial to us, because it matches with our immediate aims, the breakup of the Islamic bloc and the defeat and disruption of the Ottoman Empire, and because the states [that] would [be] set up to succeed the Turks would be harmless to ourselves. The Arabs are even less stable than the Turks. If properly handled, they would remain a political mosaic, a tissue of small jealous principalities incapable of political cohesion.

According to this plan, the British were dividing the Ottoman-Arab provinces without informing the Arabs. Under a secret agreement between the British diplomat Mark Sykes and his French counterpart François Georges-Picot, London and Paris divided up the expected spoils in such a way that the regions surrounding Beirut, Damascus and Mosul were to go to France, while the British would control the southern part of Persian Gulf, Palestine and Iraq. In another document, signed by Arthur James Balfour, the British government guaranteed the Zionist Federation "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

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The secret Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration, signed in 1916 and 1917 respectively, in effect, drew the map of the modern Middle East. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, as well as the eternal non-state of Palestine, were born from this agreement. The existence of these states has remained a source of division and unrest to this very day. In the eyes of many Arabs, the borders they created, and the dynasties the British and French installed within these borders, have always lacked legitimacy. Even after the collapse of the colonial order, the boundaries were drawn by the secret Anglo-French agreement known such as Sykes-Pico.

Further, after independence, the role of major Western powers - initially Britain and France and later on the United States - has been instrumental in the history of the Arab countries. A policy generally based on support of local elites subservient to their needs.

This fact has led to the following conditions:

1.The Arabs have turned a blind eye to the balance of geopolitics. This has transformed the concept of imperialism into a myth, hence anti-imperialism almost into a political religion. The Arabs did not take into account that the West is not a monolithic block. Yes, there is "imperialism" and "imperialist policy," which has impoverished Arab masses; however, this has only been possible with the help of absolutist monarchies and presidents-for-life who have combined corruption with repression, squelching development of civil society and the Arab middle class. In another words: It was impossible for "imperialist" powers to do what they have done without the active collaboration of corrupt elites within these countries and in a specific cultural soil.

Middle Eastern and North African populations are surging: Egypt is up from 20 million in 1950 to 80 million today. Two-thirds of all Arabs are under age 25. Some 80 million net new jobs are required over the next 15 years just to keep pace with the population explosion. It's estimated that one-third of all Egyptians

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in paid employment work for the state. State-led economies are stagnating economies. In 1960, GDP per capita in Syria was higher than in South Korea; Algeria's was very nearly the equal of Portugal's. As recently as 1980, Egyptian GDP per capita was 250% of China's; today China's is 75% higher than Egypt's.

All the Arab states together, with their combined population of 350 million, produce less in economic terms than Italy's 60 million people. Only three percent of the Libyan population works in the oil sector, which, until recently, accounted for more than 60 percent of the gross domestic product. What exactly did the rest of the population do? Official youth unemployment is at 26 percent in a rich oil-producing country like Saudi Arabia, while the unofficial rate in the countries of North Africa's Maghreb region lies at 70 percent. One third of the people of Mauritania and Yemen, and one fifth of Egyptians, live on less than $2 a day.

2. Harsh Western policies have led to the radicalization of many Arabs. Within such a brutal context we can see why an Islamic Gandhi or Martin Luther King would be unlikely to emerge, or, if one did, it would not become popular. As violence begets violence, and so we have seen the gradual radicalization of political players in Arab countries. Still, it is misleading to blame the west for anything which has gone wrong in these countries. One should recognize that the cultural conditions for such radicalization had already existed. This is the first time, however, we see Arab citizens distancing themselves from radicalism and moving towards an embrace of democracy. This should be praised and supported.

Before the current democratic revolutions in the Arab world, the weakness of liberal and leftist political groups left the task of opposing external domination to the nationalists and Islamists.

The ideas of early and enlightened Islamic reformists such as Seyed Jamal Asad Abadi/Afghani (see his letter to Ernest Renan) soon degenerated into fundamentalism, while the tradition of military style Arab nationalism, founded by Nasser and "Free

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Officers," degenerated into repressive regimes like those of Saddam in Iraq, Omar Bashir in Sudan, Saleh in Yemen and Hafez al Assad in Syria. The so-called National Socialist thought inspired by Michelle Aflaq has only increased the intensity of repressive regimes such as Syria. The Syrian regime, born out of a coup, has, in the name of resistance to Israel, transformed into a repressive regime resembling a National Socialist society, where advancement is closed to all but the elite few.

Arabs today, unlike in the past, have come to understand that the violence of war and terrorism neither leads to heaven nor to the golden age of the past. So this time the Arabs have taken to the streets without burning flags, but with extraordinary passion and generosity, and while employing peaceful means are demanding freedom and the recognition of their dignity. They know well that with freedom, comes bread. Hence they demand the removal of the autocrats, who have usurped their rights.

Bashar al-Asad and the nomenklatura of the Ba'ath Party do not want to understand this. In Syria, with all its ethnic and religious diversity (Sunnis represent some 74 percent of the population and Alawites represent roughly 8 to 12 percent), people are pouring to the streets not for sectarian reasons, but for the recognition of their freedom and common human rights.

In a rare interview, President Bashar Assad in January explained to The Wall Street Journal why he was unlikely to face a popular uprising similar to the ones in Tunisia and Egypt. Bashar said he will push for more political reforms in his country. This was a sign of how the Egyptian revolution has forced such leaders to rethink their approaches.

Assad remarked that change inside Syria was shaped by "the people's feelings and dignity, [it is] about the people participating in the decisions of their country." While Syria faced circumstances more difficult than those in most Arab countries, the country remained stable. "Why?" the President Asad asked. "Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people."

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Despite Assad's assertions, Syrians took to the streets en masse, demanding rights and democracy. And what we see now is that the security structures of the regime have completely ignored "the people's feelings and dignity" and instead repressed the demonstrations.

To make matters worse, Damascus has blamed Israeli provocateurs, rebel forces, and shady foreign agents for the bloodshed -- anyone but its own forces.

Mr. Assad told The Wall Street Journal that "the protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen are ushering in a "new era" in the Middle East, and that Arab rulers will need to do more to accommodate their people's rising political and economic aspirations." Yet it seems that he himself was the first to betray his own words. In fact, in the speech Asad addressed to the nation before Parliament, which largely disappointed the hopes of reformers, he declined to end the state of emergency or to acknowledge and respect the human rights demanded by the Syrian demonstrators. He just talked about the necessity for some vague 'reform.' His speech defined the protests as a 'conspiracy' provoked by 'instigators' from outside (some distant, some nearby). The de facto meaning of his speech: The Arab Spring stops on the road to Damascus.

To be absolutely fair: There are certainly external pressures and there could also be marginal plots instigated and supplied from outside, and there is also pressure by the fundamentalists; but the protests in Syria -- as in other Arab countries -- are primarily a genuine movement of the people to claim democratic rights and social justice. In Syria for the last 48 years, the law has been enforced by and through the military and intelligence services. The regime controls all the levers of power. Now, Syrian citizens are calling for the end of the regime and the one party state that has denied them their human rights.

Reading Asad's speech to the nation, one is amazed at his lack of understanding of the "New Era" of which he himself has already

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spoken. Lamis K. Andoni, the profound connoisseur of the Arab countries and well known AlJazeera analyst, wrote: "The rhetoric of resistance no longer conceals the repressive policies of the Syrian regime."

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Leading article: A killing in Gaza that also carries a warning to IsraelIndependent,16 Apr. 2011,

The kidnapping and killing of Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza is exactly what the Italian foreign ministry statement said it was: "An act of vile and senseless violence."

Arrigoni was no novice; he had lived in Gaza for several years, working for the International Solidarity Movement, a group committed to non-violent resistance against Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. There was no reason for Palestinians to treat him as anything other than the sincerest of friends.

This is not the only inexplicable element in his fate. His captors appear to have been members of the Salafist movement, a group that regards Hamas as unduly moderate. Their declared purpose was to secure the release of their leader, who was detained by the Hamas authorities last month. But Arrigoni died several hours before the expiry of the deadline they had imposed, suggesting either that something went wrong from the start or that they quickly abandoned hope of attaining their objective.

The killing prompted grief in Gaza, but also despair. Not only was Arrigoni well known and well liked there, but it escaped no one that this kidnapping was the first since that of the BBC journalist Alan Johnson in 2007. The intervening four years – crudely interrupted by Operation Cast Lead, Israel's 2008 reinvasion of the territory – had seen Hamas gradually more able to impose order. Missile attacks on Israel had declined and kidnappings of

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foreigners had ceased. It must be feared that the death of Arrigoni signals a change. With missile attacks on Israel from Gaza also increasing in recent weeks, the relative calm is at risk of breaking down. Lawlessness, never far from the surface in Gaza, could be on its way back, with implications for the territory, for the Palestinian cause, for Israel, and for the, currently moribund, prospects of peace in the Middle East.

Two factors can be identified as fostering current tensions – one that can be addressed; the other harder to tame. The first is the continuing Israeli blockade, which has helped to create and now exacerbates tensions in Gaza. Loosening the blockade is the only way that the pressure inside the densely populated territory can be relieved. Allowing in more goods, including especially medical supplies and building materials, would bring a rapid improvement of conditions inside Gaza, with hospitals better able to function, more productive work, and an acceleration of reconstruction. It is unfortunate that Israel's automatic response to renewed violence in Gaza is to tighten the blockade, without apparently understanding that this invariably serves only to reinforce the malign trends.

The other factor is the spread of unrest across the wider region. With Egypt still in ferment, protests in Syria showing no sign of abating and a new Jordanian government only just holding the line, Gaza inhabits a deeply troubled neighbourhood. What is more, it shares many of those countries' most problematical features: a very young population, an acute lack of employment, and serious obstacles to political engagement. With so much turmoil gathering around, the very last thing Israel needs is chaos in Gaza. But it needs to recognise that it holds the keys to making that less likely in its own hands. Self-interest, as well as the benefit to Gaza, dictates that it should relax the blockade.

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NPR: 'Syria's President Orders Release Of Demonstrators'..

ABNA: 'Hariri Can't Sit with Sayyed Nasrallah in One Room!: WikiLeaks'..

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Jerusalem Post: 'Protests erupt throughout Syria despite Assad's gestures'..

Yedioth Ahronoth: 'Syrian forces quell protesters with a heavy hand'..

Independent: 'Syria's security forces fire tear gas as tens of thousands march on Damascus'..

Reuters: 'Syria Protests Sweep Into Capital, Defying Assad'..

NYTIMES: 'Syria: Policeman Beaten to Death by Protesters'..

LATIMES: 'SYRIA: Red card, you're out? Massive protests deliver stern warning to regime'..

Haaretz: 'U.S. Senate urges UN to rescind Goldstone's Gaza report'..

Haaretz: 'Muslim students arraigned for disrupting Israeli ambassador in California University'..

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