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Analysis: Syria status quo serves Israelis and Palestinians
Analysis: Sound of a dictator preparing for a long battle
Casino Damascus – open only since January 1 – sparked an outcry from religious conservatives over state-sanctioned gambling. A day earlier, the government of President Bashar al-Assad suspended all soccer matches in an apparent bid to avoid gatherings that may turn into a rallying point for anti-government protests.
"The Syrian Revolution 2011" Facebook page called for protests across the country Thursday and Friday, calling it "Martyrs Week." By Wednesday, the page had more than 100,000 fans.
Moshe Ma’oz, a Syria expert at Hebrew University, said he doesn’t expect the Assad regime to give in on anything beyond merely cosmetic reform: “He’s not going to give up. His back is against the wall and he knows that if he falls there could be a massacre of him and his family. Survival is the key word.”
“The regime is strong, the opposition is not organized, except for the Muslim Brotherhood, but it isn’t very strong,” he said. “The army is still loyal to Assad, particularly since key officers are Alawite, or Sunnis or Christians allied with the Alawites, and they are not going to depose as did their Egyptian counterparts because they depend on the regime.”
The Assad regime "has not done a thing for the sake of the homeland and the citizens after more than 40 years in power, other than opening more prisons,” he wrote, according to a translation distributed by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a press monitoring organization. Tartusi called on Syria’s Alawite community - comprising 12 percent of the population but virtually dominating the army and security forces - to join the fight against the regime.
On Tuesday two Syrian policemen were shot dead by unidentified gunmen near Damascus, state television said. The policemen were carrying out a "normal patrol" when the gunmen fired on them in the area of Kafar Batna, the channel said without giving further details.
The area is near the Damascus suburb of Douma, where security forces
shot dead at least eight protesters on Friday who took part in a large demonstration demanding political freedoms.
The same day, Syrian human rights activists told The New York Times it
believed the death toll since the start of the unrest had reached at
least 173 people, including 15 in Douma and 143 in Deraa, the southern
city where the demonstrations began. The Paris-based International
Federation for Human Rights, working with the Damascus Center for Human
Rights Studies, said it had documented 123 deaths, including 22 in
Douma. Both figures were based on data provided by doctors, victims’
family members and witnesses.
Authorities released Syrian human rights activist Suhair al-Atassi this week after two and a half weeks in detention. On Monday she told Reuters of being dragged by her hair while protesting in Damascus in support of political prisoners: "It was surreal. I was dragged for what felt like the length of two streets. The apparatchiks looked at me as if I was not their compatriot. They kept shouting that I was an Israeli spy.”
"As I stood bruised in front of the judge at the Palace of Justice, I thought that the only progress the Syrian regime was making was in making up absurd charges,” she said. “No one has the right to be a master of a nation.”
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