{"id":1591,"date":"2011-06-02T11:41:43","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T11:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/?p=1591"},"modified":"2011-06-02T11:41:43","modified_gmt":"2011-06-02T11:41:43","slug":"syrians-west-criticize-assad-amnesty-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2011\/06\/02\/1591\/","title":{"rendered":"Syrians, West Criticize Assad Amnesty Offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAMASCUS \u2013 In a new effort to assuage public protests against his 11-year rule, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has issued a general amnesty, a move dismissed by the opposition and the West.
Assad\u2019s amnesty covers “all members of political movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood”, state television said.
Assad’s move was the latest in a series of reforms — including lifting a 48-year state of emergency and granting citizenship to stateless Kurds in eastern Syria — aimed at addressing the grievances of protesters.
But those steps have been accompanied by a ruthless military crackdown in which rights campaigners say 1,000 civilians have been killed and more than 10,000 people arrested.
The deadly crackdown has prompted the United States, which has called Assad\u2019s repression of protests \u201cbarbaric\u201d, and the European Union to impose sanctions against Assad and senior Syrian officials.
Activists said at least five people were killed on Tuesday when tanks shelled the central town of Rastan and security forces stormed Hirak, a town in the southern Hauran Plain where the uprising first broke out in mid-March.
Syria blames the violence on armed groups, Islamists and foreign agitators, saying more than 120 police and soldiers have been killed in the unrest nationwide.
The official SANA news agency said two soldiers were killed in an operation to arrest “armed terrorist groups” in Rastan.
The agency quoted a military source saying army and security forces seized weapons and ammunition in Rastan and killed or injured “a number of armed terrorists”.
Assad assumed power when his father, Hafez al-Assad, died in 2000 after three decades of rule.
The elder Assad crushed an armed Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama in 1982, flattening part of the old city and killing many thousands.
Also on Tuesday, the UN children’s agency UNICEF called on Syria to investigate reports of “horrific acts” of violence against children detained during the current wave of unrest.
In a statement, UNICEF said use of live ammunition against demonstrators had reportedly killed at least 30 children, although it said it could not independently confirm that figure or the circumstances of their death.
Syrian television said on Tuesday the Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar had launched an investigation into the killing of Hamza Khatib, a 13-year-old boy who activists say died after being tortured in detention.
Footage of his bruised and bloodied body has been widely disseminated on the Internet.

Assad on Trial<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Syrian opposition, meeting in Turkey\u2019s Mediterranean resort of Antalya to discuss ways of a regime change in their country, rejected Assad\u2019s offer and called on him to leave.
“The Syrian people are calling for the fall of the regime,” the head of the Muslim Brotherhood delegation to the conference, Melhem al-Durubi, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“This announcement is too little too late… It is Assad himself who should be granted amnesty because he killed his people. He should simply leave,” he said, adding that Assad “should be tried for his crimes.”
The conference brought together more than 300 dissidents, mostly exiles representing various opposition and ethnic groups.
Organizers said their purpose was to draw up a “roadmap” of a peaceful and democratic transition in Syria.
The three-day gathering — titled “Conference for Change in Syria” — opened with the Syrian national anthem and a minute of silence for “the martyrs” killed in bloody crackdowns on street protests simmering in Syria since March.
“Freedom, freedom” and “the people are united” the participants chanted.
The meeting was expected to end Friday with a joint statement.
Speakers at the conference condemned “massacres” of civilians and urged Assad’s departure.
“I want democracy. Those who committed those heinous crimes must be tried,” Dugmush Dia al-Din, a 25-year-old student who came from Damascus, told AFP.
“The regime is not legitimate and has no longer a ground to stay on,” said the activist, who has been jailed twice for participating in the revolt.
The amnesty offer did not also impress the Western powers with the United States saying Assad needed to take concrete action.
“He has talked reform but we have seen very little in the way of action… he needs to take steps — concrete steps, not rhetoric — to address what is going on in the country,” US State Department spokesman Mark Toner was quoted by Reuters as saying.
In Paris, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the amnesty had come too late and called for a more fundamental change in policy to deal with the protests sweeping the country.
“I fear it may be too late,” France’s Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told France Culture radio.
“The Syrian authorities’ change of direction will have to be much clearer and more ambitious than a simple amnesty.”
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd called for putting the Syrian president on trial over his brutal crackdown on protestors.
“I believe it is high time that the Security Council now consider a formal referral of President Assad to the International Criminal Court.”

Source: OnIslam<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAMASCUS \u2013 In a new effort to assuage public protests against his 11-year rule, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has issued a general amnesty, a move dismissed by the opposition and the West.Assad\u2019s amnesty covers “all members of political movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood”, state television 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-1591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSyrians, West Criticize Assad Amnesty Offer - 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\/06\/02\/1591\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Syrians, West Criticize Assad Amnesty Offer - 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