SYRIA

Democracy protests grow despite repression

by Peter Hogarth

Calls for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down grow louder, despite the continued violent repression of demonstrations throughout the country.

Syrian forces’ “security operations” in Jisr al-Shug in the north of the country consist of shooting unarmed people and rolling in bands of tanks to lay siege to the town. Ten thousand of the town’s 70,000 residents have fled. Syrian authorities claimed that 120 security personnel had been killed by “armed gangs” in the town, but witnesses have reported that the deaths were the result of the military turning their guns on soldiers who refused to fire on unarmed protesters.

The operation was launched by the army’s 4th Brigade, which is commanded by Maher Assad, brother of the president. The 4th Brigade has punished fleeing refugees by burning their crops and homes and slaughtering their animals.

Throughout the Syrian uprising, which has grown since it began in March, Syrian security forces have killed an estimated 1,200 people and arrested 10,000, many of whom have been subjected to torture.
This repression has a long, bloody history in Syria. The current president’s uncle commanded the military forces that leveled the city of Hama in 1982, a massacre that saw tens of thousands killed to crush an uprising.

At last count, nine people had been killed after tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the street across the country on July 1. The Local Co-Cordination Committees, a network of activists, reported that 30,000 demonstrators had gathered in Deir al-Zour in the east of the country after Friday prayers, chanting for an end to the repression and the toppling of the regime. Similar demonstrations were reported from Ain al-Arab and Hama where 200,000 people were rallying, with noted solidarity between Arabs and Kurdish people and other ethnic and religious minorities.

This solidarity is important in a country where the regime has long attempted to use sectarian divisions to keep itself in power. Since the 1970 coup that brought Hafez Assad to power, the Alawite community, an offshoot of Shia Islam, has dominated key posts in the government and armed forces. The regime poses as the defenders of Alawites, Christians, Druze and others against the Sunni majority.

However, the continuing revolt in Syria has crossed religious and ethnic divisions, terrifying the regime and forging the unity that will be necessary to take down Assad. As Western powers are looking to increase their dominance in the region, only the solidarity and democratic aspirations of the Syrian people can liberate them from both Assad and Western imperialism.