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UN Says Syria Death Toll Has Passed 3,500
More than 3,500 people have died in months of anti-government protests in Syria, according to the UN.
Sara, 12, shouts slogans during a rally against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in front of the Syrian embassy in Sofia, on Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)) A UN spokeswoman blamed "the brutal crackdown on dissent" for the figure, which was based on sources on the ground.
Last week the Arab League said Syria had agreed proposals for a peace deal involving the opposition.
The UN says since then more than 60 people have been reported killed - many in the central city of Homs.
"Syrian troops continue to use tanks and heavy weaponry to attack residential areas in the city of Homs," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
Opposition activists say security forces have been mounting a heavy offensive on the city over the past few days, particularly on the contested Baba Amr district.
They say troops are going house-to-house to make arrests, although many residents are reported to have fled.
Ms Shamdasani described the situation in Baba Amr as "particularly appalling," adding that according to information the OHCHR has received, the area has remained under siege for seven days, with residents deprived of food, water and medical supplies.
The claims are impossible to verify as the Syrian government has severely restricted access for foreign journalists.
The government said last weekend that it had released political prisoners as a first step to implementing the peace deal.
However, Ms Shamdasani said that despite the release, "thousands continue to remain in detention and dozens continue to be arbitrarily arrested every day".
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11 Comments so far
Show AllThis seems kinda familiar, a ready-made "bad guy", thousands of innocent "civilians" to rescue, a willing and able "opposition" that loves the USA and welcomes their "aid", other countries are already signed up as our "allies" so we don't need to feel like we're going in alone...oh and the Ba'ath party is making another resurgence as the "villain" in this tale, the fact that Ba'ath translates to a arabic form of "socialism/socialist" is no more than a interesting coincidence, right? Another head to attach to Obama's belt loop, eh you crazy Democrats, you party of the 'left' eh? :)
I am a huge admirer of Alan Watts. And this post comes across as nothing the man would have ever said.
Do I support a Western invasion of Syria, or a series of drone-strikes to strike some fear into the Al-Assad regime? I would much prefer that their country was able to cast off the shackles of tyranny on their own, but what I see in this country is a very different picture of what was happening in Libya. Bashar Al-Assad has turned his guns on the very democratic forces we should be in solidarity with —and does not represent a challenge to Western hegemony, as did Gaddafi with his loud mouth and talk of African unity and an African Dinar. Al-Assad has turned out to be just another dirty murderer, and deserves no compassion.
But no, I do not support an invasion. I am intrinsically against that type of neo-liberal thinking. But I do think the people getting slaughtered in Syria worthy of our sympathy, and I think in this case, the reports are not being cynically used to excuse further adventurism in the region. The country is brutally suppressing rebellion and uprising against tyranny. Action of some sort that addresses this should be taken.
More Americans need to understand and process information about *each individual* country that is now involved in some aspect of the so-called 'Arab Spring'. In some cases, the uprisings are spontaneous and legitimate, in others, NATO, and the West's agents are busily at work, in some, the repressive regimes have the upper hand, in others, the democratic forces have it. Syria is not Libya, nor is it Iran.
Bashar is no socialist, or at least certainly not a socialist worth emulating or celebrating in any way whatsoever. Lets gets some basics right before we simply dismiss thousands of lost innocent lives.
I always try to think if what people are saying is in MY INTEREST to believe, or in SOMEONE ELSES INTEREST to believe. This right here: "...Bashar Al-Assad has turned his guns on the very democratic forces we should be in solidarity with," strikes me as something someone else would want me to believe. So I don't care. I say we mind our own business, keep minding our own business and keep right on doing that tomorrow and the day after that and the next day after that. Alan Watts said (quoting the dying inventor of the Hydrogen bomb, Robert Oppenheimer) "It is perfectly clear to me that the world is going to hell. The only thing that will stop it, is if we don't try to stop it." Now that's something I can get behind! We have our own problems, time to focus on them, AND ONLY ON THEM. Until they are solved, every one of them. It does not matter to me which multi-national corporations dominate Syria, I've got some right hear I need to mess with.
Also, it would appear that you do, support an invasion, as long as the invaders are supposedly on your side. At least that's the gist of what I gathered reading your response. It seems like a sort of soft-liberal apologetic for the 'supreme international crime,' (i.e. armed invasion of soverigne nation-state) which I cannot support and will not support, no matter who is demonizing who and what cell-phone photos you shove in my face. I would tell you I'm not falling for that again, except I never fell for it in the first place.
I would support an invasion of democratically minded Syrian revolutionary forces, aided perhaps to a degree by outside sympathizers. But not a Western nation, as our meddling is as you say, the source of the problem.
Look, I completely get where you're coming from, and this issue is not about whether others should or should not get involved. Essentially I think we agree on that.
My real point was that your post was giving Al-Assad a pass, praise even, and to me there is nothing here to see other than more and more of the same atrocities. If there ever was an instance where America has the moral authority to at least yell bloody murder, and ask the world to intervene in our stead, this is it.
But is that what Obama is doing? Of course not. He doesn't work off a moral compass, but off one guided by pure bankster driven Real Politik.
It estimated 60000 civilians were killed by the UN mandated "No Fly Zone cum Regime change" in Libya.
It has been bombed into the stone age and now the Western Governments lay claim to its resources.
So much for the UN and their concern over civilians.
To say nothing of the fact that a good part of the blame for the Syrian deaths must be laid at the feet of the CIA and various shadow organizations for helping stir up the rebellion and arming it.
This reeks of psy-ops, which the BBC is notorious for. Assad is a dick but he's probably fighting a western back insurgency.
The opposition in Syria is NOT a democracy movement, it is simply an anti-Assad movement. The uprising in Hama against Hafez El-Assad, Bashir's father was the Muslim Brotherhood. Some of the younger activists would like to think that it is a democratic movement but they do not and will not have any authority once this is over...and this has a very long way to go if it will succeed at all. Unlike the other Arab dictatorships to fall recently, Syria does not let in any foreign media so the opposition is at a disadvantage over the dissemination of information. That said, the ideal government in the Middle East is one similar to Iran or Saudi Arabia where sharia law is in full force and greater than one person is in control, albeit a few. By these means, any opposition against the government is viewed as a direct challenge to Islamic authority and would be crushed from the start.