Syria: Mourners killed after 76 die in clashes

Published on Saturday 23 April 2011 15:32

SYRIAN security forces fired on tens of thousands of mourners during funeral processions, killing at least nine people as the mounting death toll prompted two Syrian politicians and a religious leader to resign in disgust.

The politicians, Nasser Hariri and Khalil Rifai, are from Daraa, the southwestern city where the protest movement started in mid-March after a group of teenagers were arrested for scrawling anti-regime graffiti on a wall.

The religious leader, Rezq Abdulrahman Abazeid, a government-appointed mufti - or preacher - from the same province, also resigned.

"If I cannot protect the chests of my people from these treacherous strikes, then there is no meaning for me to stay in the People's Assembly. I declare my resignation," Hariri told al-Jazeera.

Resignations are rare in Syria, where nearly all opposition figures are either jailed or exiled.

But the bloodshed so far has only served to invigorate protesters whose demands have snowballed from modest reforms to the downfall of president Bashar al-Assad.

Each Friday, growing numbers in many cities have taken to the streets despite the near certainty of swift retribution by security forces and pro-government gunmen known as "shabiha".Friday was the deadliest day of the uprising, with at least 76 people killed as Syrian security forces fired bullets and tear gas at tens of thousands of protesters across the country.

The crackdown was a clear signal that the regime was prepared to stop at nothing to quell revolt.

The death toll continued to rise yesterday as security forces fired on funeral processions, killing at least nine people.

Witnesses said security forces killed four people in Douma, a suburb of the capital, Damascus. Human rights activist Ammar Qurabi said five people were killed in the southern village of Izraa and neighbouring Sheikh Miskeen.

The witness account could not be independently confirmed because Syria has expelled journalists and restricted access to trouble spots. They spoke on condition of anonymity.

"They prevented us from continuing our way to the cemetery," claimed the witness in Douma, who said he was among at least 50,000 people taking part in the funerals there.

Witnesses and rights campaigners also said security forces killed three people in Damascus's Barzah district and a further three when they fired at mourners trying to join funerals near Izra'a in southern Syria, where at least 12 burials were taking place.According to those witnesses, the mourners were chanting "Bashar al-Assad, you traitor! Long live Syria, down with Bashar!"

"There was a heavy volley of gunfire in our direction as we approached Izra'a to join the funerals of martyrs," a witness from the southern city of Deraa said.

The Muslim preacher who resigned said he had done so in the face of the rising violence. "Being assigned to give fatwas (religious edicts], I submit my resignation as a result of the fall of victims and martyrs by police fire," Abazeid told al-Jazeera. "When they announce at high levels that (protesters] will not be shot at, we see that the truth on the ground is not like that," he said.

Abazeid is the first Syrian religious leader to resign in connection with the current violent suppression of protest, which sparked rallies in support by Islamists in the Lebanese port of Tripoli.