Syrian authorities on Monday broke up a rare protest by human rights activists demanding political and civil reforms on the 41st anniversary of the ruling party's accession to power. It was not clear how many of the approximately 20 activists were arrested. Witnesses speaking on condition of anonymity said several were seen taken away in buses by Syrian police. Several news photographers and reporters were briefly detained and questioned and later released. The protest outside Parliament, organized by the Committees for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria, would have been the first of its kind in a country where political activity is tightly controlled.
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The head of the group, Aktham Naisse, told The Associated Press a day earlier that he had been pressured by authorities to cancel the sit-in. A close relative of Naisse, who did not want to be identified, said Naisse was among those arrested. Before the protest, Syrian riot police and plainclothes security agents stood ready around the Parliament building in downtown Damascus. When the group of around 20 protesters arrived, they were told to disperse. One man raised a banner that read: "Freedom for Prisoners of Opinion and Conscience." The banner was quickly torn up by agents, who snatched the notebooks of journalists gathered to cover the sit-in. At one point, Naisse, a lawyer from the northern town of Latakia, told the activists to raise their hands in the air, which they did, and told them: "We're going to prison, we are not afraid."
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Police then dispersed the protesters and angrily told reporters to leave. Naisse helped found the human rights group in 1991 and spent seven years in detention until being pardoned in 1998 by late Syrian President Hafez Assad. |