Tweet
DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces rounded up thousands of men as they went house to house in a bid to crush an anti-regime protest movement in the coastal city of Banias on Monday, as shots rang out in a Damascus suburb surrounded by troops, activists said.
Protests organizers meanwhile called for a day of solidarity Tuesday with “prisoners of conscience” held in Syrian jails, according to a statement posted on the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page.
A human rights campaigner in Homs said the snipers deployed in several residential neighborhoods as the sound of gunfire died down in districts of the city that tanks stormed on Sunday.
“There are snipers visible on rooftops of private and public building in Al-Adawiya, Bab Sebaa and Al-Mreijah neighborhoods. Hundreds have fled from three villages just to the southwest of Homs where tanks had deployed,” the campaigner said.
Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said water, electricity and telephone lines have been cut off in Banias, on Syria’s northwest Mediterranean coast.
“There were house-to-house raids overnight and it continued on Monday morning,” Abdul Rahman said, adding that the men were being rounded up for questioning in a stadium based on lists of names.
“Thousands of men, including youths, have been rounded up by the army and security forces ... to be interrogated and they are being beaten. More than 400 are still being held,” the activist said.
Among those detained were protest leaders and doctors at a hospital that was encircled by the military, the Syrian Observatory said in a statement on Sunday. Tanks rumbled into several districts and deployed along the corniche in Banias overnight Saturday-Sunday, according to activists. “Banias is cut off from the outside world,” one activist said. Owners of Internet software shops have also been arrested, he said, although detainees aged over 40 had been released.
Hundreds of women took to the streets of Banias early Monday to demand the release of arrested men and some even charged checkpoints to vent their anger, activists said.
Syrian authorities, meanwhile, stopped a UN humanitarian team from visiting the protest city of Deraa where hundreds have been killed in the crackdown, a UN spokesman said Monday.
“The UN humanitarian assessment mission has not been able to get into Deraa,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.
Protests organizers meanwhile called for a day of solidarity Tuesday with “prisoners of conscience” held in Syrian jails, according to a statement posted on the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page.
A human rights campaigner in Homs said the snipers deployed in several residential neighborhoods as the sound of gunfire died down in districts of the city that tanks stormed on Sunday.
“There are snipers visible on rooftops of private and public building in Al-Adawiya, Bab Sebaa and Al-Mreijah neighborhoods. Hundreds have fled from three villages just to the southwest of Homs where tanks had deployed,” the campaigner said.
Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said water, electricity and telephone lines have been cut off in Banias, on Syria’s northwest Mediterranean coast.
“There were house-to-house raids overnight and it continued on Monday morning,” Abdul Rahman said, adding that the men were being rounded up for questioning in a stadium based on lists of names.
“Thousands of men, including youths, have been rounded up by the army and security forces ... to be interrogated and they are being beaten. More than 400 are still being held,” the activist said.
Among those detained were protest leaders and doctors at a hospital that was encircled by the military, the Syrian Observatory said in a statement on Sunday. Tanks rumbled into several districts and deployed along the corniche in Banias overnight Saturday-Sunday, according to activists. “Banias is cut off from the outside world,” one activist said. Owners of Internet software shops have also been arrested, he said, although detainees aged over 40 had been released.
Hundreds of women took to the streets of Banias early Monday to demand the release of arrested men and some even charged checkpoints to vent their anger, activists said.
Syrian authorities, meanwhile, stopped a UN humanitarian team from visiting the protest city of Deraa where hundreds have been killed in the crackdown, a UN spokesman said Monday.
“The UN humanitarian assessment mission has not been able to get into Deraa,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.
