Syria in 2011

Serious protests broke out in Syria in March, despite President al-Assad's boasts about his country's immunity from civil unrest. The protesters demanded the lifting of the emergency law--in place since the 60s--that allowed for citizens to be arrested and held without charge indefinitely, permitted intelligence officials unrestricted powers of search and seizure, and criminalized public demonstrations. The emergency law was lifted on April 19th of this year, and al-Assad declared "peaceful demonstrations" would be legalized, but little has changed. By the Friday following al-Assad's declaration, security forces were firing on protesters again.

The government crackdown in Syria has fallen into a grotesque pattern. Flashpoint communities are surrounded by security forces, their phone, electricity, water, and internet lines are cut, and then the cities are shelled, sniped, and all but ransacked. In the case of Deraa, just a few miles from the border with Jordan, the border was sealed, further preventing escape. (More on Deraa in this Human Rights Watch Report) Throughout Syria, security forces have opened fire on protesters, prevented them from reaching medical care, and then blamed the violence on "armed gangs."

At this point, there is little reason to believe that Bashar al-Assad will allow any legitimate opposition to coalesce—be it physical or virtual, as continuing detentions of bloggers, activists, and foreign journalists illustrate. Furthermore, there is no incentive for al-Assad to accomodate reformists' demands. Events in Syria have shown that the regime in power remains consistent in its message that national unity and order must be upheld against the influences of disunion and chaos propagated by anti-regime sentiment. The possibility of chaos is a frightening specter to Syrians, who know about the upheaval of the 50’s and 60’s, and are all too aware of the simmering sectarian divisions within their society. This has led to significant pushback against reformists, who are seen as a danger to the tenuous unity of the country. As a reminder, in 1982, Hafez al-Assad’s forces killed up to 20,000 to quell a revolt, but he managed to stay in power.

International response has been pretty toothless.  With NATO air strikes in Libya being received poorly on all sides, the UN narrowly passed a resolution that condemned the killing of peaceful protesters and called for an investigation of possible international law violations, but balked at additional action. That was at the end of April. There is another statement of condemnation in the works now, but again it doesn't contain any action, just words. al-Jazeera English article about the new UN resolution

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate. On Tuesday, the Syrian government vowed retaliation for the deaths of 120 security personnel near the town of Jisr al-Shugur in what they described as an ambush by armed gangs. A government newspaper indicated that a "military and security operation" would take place near Jisr al-Shugur because of information that "hundreds of gunmen" would be found there. al-Jazeera Arabic article on Jisr al-Shugur (the above al-Jazeera English article also talks about this, but I wanted to read it in Arabic for practice) This has caused many residents in the area to flee in a panic, even as some contend that the dead police were killed by the army for refusing to open fire on civilians.     

Up next: individual victims as symbols and rallying points for protesters