{"id":1571,"date":"2011-05-17T13:38:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T13:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/?p=1571"},"modified":"2011-05-17T13:38:17","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T13:38:17","slug":"activist-says-mass-grave-found-in-syrian-town-where-anti-assad-protests-have-raged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2011\/05\/17\/1571\/","title":{"rendered":"Activist says mass grave found in Syrian town where anti-Assad protests have raged"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-left: 5px; float: right;\" alt=\"daraa_mass_grave\" src=\"images\/stories\/news\/daraa_mass_grave.jpg\" height=\"240\" width=\"283\" \/>Syria\u2019s brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protests took a chilling turn on Monday with the discovery of a mass grave in Deraa, the town at the heart of protests roiling the country for two months, an activist said.<\/div>\n<p>  <!--more-->  <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe army today allowed residents to venture outside their homes for two hours daily,\u201d said Ammar Qurabi of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.<br \/> \u201cThey discovered a mass grave in the old part of town but authorities immediately cordoned off the area to prevent residents from recovering the bodies, some of which they promised would be handed over later,\u201d he said on the phone from Cairo.<br \/>Mr. Qurabi said the Syrian regime must bear full responsibility for the crimes committed against \u201cunarmed\u201d citizens and urged the international community and civil society to pressure it to stop the \u201cbrutal repression\u201d of its people.<br \/>He was unable say how many people were buried in the alleged mass grave.<br \/>His account could not be independently verified as Syrian authorities have all but sealed off the country to foreign journalists amid a brutal crackdown against unprecedented protests threatening the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.<br \/>Mr. Qurabi said that 34 people had also been killed in the past five days in the towns of Jassem and Inkhil, near Deraa.<br \/> \u201cI fear that dozens more casualties may be lying in nearby wheat fields and orchards because families have not been able to access the region which is encircled by security troops and snipers,\u201d he said.<br \/>The unrest in Syria first erupted in Damascus on March 15 but was promptly put down and soon spread to Deraa and across the country with protesters emboldened by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.<br \/>More than 850 people, including women and children, have been killed and at least 8,000 arrested as security forces crack down on the protest movements, according to rights groups.<br \/>The bloodshed spilled into neighboring Lebanon at the weekend when a Syrian woman, among dozens fleeing the northwestern town of Tall Kalakh, was killed and six other people wounded, a Lebanese security official said.<br \/>Witnesses contacted by telephone also reported 10 people were killed on Sunday in Tall Kalakh, located near the Lebanese border, as security forces deployed inside the town.<br \/>Shelling and shooting was also reported in the nearby town of Arida, an activist told AFP.<br \/>Meanwhile hundreds of protesters and rights advocates detained in recent days were released on Sunday after signing pledges not to take part in further protests, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.<br \/> \u201cSeveral of them said they had been tortured,\u201d he said, adding that thousands of people remained jailed and more arrests were taking place.<br \/>The regime has blamed the deadly violence on \u201carmed terrorist gangs\u201d backed by Islamists and foreign agitators.<br \/>Dozens of Syrians who fled the violence in their hometowns gathered in north Lebanon on Monday to demand the fall of Mr. Assad\u2019s regime, an AFP correspondent witnessed.<br \/> \u201cThe people want the fall of the regime,\u201d chanted the group gathered in the village of Al-Boqayah, located along the border.<br \/>Most of the protesters hailed from the Syrian towns of Tall Kalakh and Arida.<br \/> \u201cWe don\u2019t love you, Bashar,\u201d and \u201cTall Kalakh, have no fear, we are with you,\u201d they shouted.<br \/>The United Sates and European Union have responded to the unrest in Syria by imposing sanctions on members of President Assad\u2019s inner circle but stopped short of targeting him personally.<br \/>Rights groups have called for harsher sanctions but there are fears that should Mr. Assad\u2019s regime fall that would have serious ramifications for the region and could lead to civil war.<br \/>Human Rights Watch at the weekend accused the regime of pushing forth with its campaign to crush the pro-democracy protests by rounding up activists and holding many of them incommunicado while going after their families.<br \/> \u201cSyria\u2019s leaders talk about a war against terrorists, but what we see on the ground is a war against ordinary Syrians\u2014lawyers, human rights activists, and university students\u2014who are calling for democratic changes in their country,\u201d said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of the New York-based organization in a statement released Sunday.<br \/> \u201cSyria\u2019s emergency law may have been lifted on paper, but repression is still the rule on Syria\u2019s streets.<br \/> \u201cBehind the empty rhetoric of promises and national dialogue, there is a systematic campaign to rebuild Syria\u2019s wall of fear with only one purpose: allowing (President Bashar) al-Assad and his cronies to maintain their absolute grip on power,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: Al Arabiya<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syria\u2019s brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protests took a chilling turn on Monday with the discovery of a mass grave in Deraa, the town at the heart of protests roiling the country for two months, an activist said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Activist says mass grave found in Syrian town where anti-Assad protests have raged - SunniOnline<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2011\/05\/17\/1571\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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