'Good Friday massacre' in Syria leaves at least 50 dead
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Pastor Dale Morgan
Apr 22, 2011, 2:51:15 PM4/22/11
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'Good Friday massacre' in Syria leaves at least 50 dead
Syria’s security forces stand accused of carrying out a “Good Friday massacre” of more than 50 protesters on one of the bloodiest days yet in the five-week uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent 6:14PM BST 22 Apr 2011
The Telegraph UK
Yesterday, Mr Assad responded to growing popular pressure by lifting Syria’s draconian 1962 emergency laws. But the president’s apparently conciliatory gesture failed to signal a softening of the regime’s determination to crush dissent.
Aross the country, protesters spilling out of mosques were met with live ammunition, sometimes within minutes of Friday prayers ending.
In Damascus, the capital, and towns and cities to the east, west and south, every attempt to challenge the regime was met with the same remorseless vengeance.
By dusk, there were fatalities reported from nine separate demonstrations. Up to 54 people were killed, according to a Daily Telegraph tally of reports by Syrian activists, witnesses and doctors.
Even by the blood-soaked standards of the repression that has characterised the Syrian uprising - at least 220 people have died since protests first began on March 18th - this was killing on a different order of magnitude.
Yesterday’s protests were billed as a major showdown between Mr Assad and the ever-swelling ranks of his opponents.
The president presented his decision to lift Syria’s state of emergency as a final offer to the demonstrators. It was a concession, he said, that removed the last pretext for legitimate protest; anyone who took to the streets after his magnanimous gesture was a bandit or a rebel.
Yet tens of thousands were prepared to defy the president once more, even though they were well aware that the security forces had been given license to use unfettered force.
In stark contrast to the first protests in March, when slogans were directed at not at the president but at his policies, those who took to the streets  tore down posters of Mr Assad and statues of his father Hafez, who rules Syria until his death in 2000.
Others demanded the resignation of the “Doctor”, as Mr Assad, a London-trained ophthalmologist, is known, chanting: “The Syrian people will not be subjugated.
Go away Doctor! We will trample on you and your murderous regime.”
Many did not get very far, however. In Azra, a town in the southern province of Deraa, 3,000 protesters marching on the main square came under sustained fire.
Doctors in the town said 10 corpses had been brought to the hospital’s tiny morgue and that other bodies remained on the streets.
The scene was repeated in suburbs of Damascus and nearby towns, where loyalist gunmen joined the police in confronting the protesters.
A four-year-old girl was reportedly among the victims, shot in the head by a sniper according to opposition activists.
“What today proves beyond question is that Syria is the most repressive regime in the Middle East and Assad is the worst dictator,” one activist said. “The people marched peacefully and they were shot in their scores. It is a massacre, a Good Friday Massacre, and a war crime.”
'Good Friday massacre' in Syria leaves at least 50 dead
Syria’s security forces stand accused of carrying out a “Good Friday massacre” of more than 50 protesters on one of the bloodiest days yet in the five-week uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent 6:14PM BST 22 Apr 2011
The Telegraph UK
Yesterday, Mr Assad responded to growing popular pressure by lifting Syria’s draconian 1962 emergency laws. But the president’s apparently conciliatory gesture failed to signal a softening of the regime’s determination to crush dissent.
Aross the country, protesters spilling out of mosques were met with live ammunition, sometimes within minutes of Friday prayers ending.
In Damascus, the capital, and towns and cities to the east, west and south, every attempt to challenge the regime was met with the same remorseless vengeance.
By dusk, there were fatalities reported from nine separate demonstrations. Up to 54 people were killed, according to a Daily Telegraph tally of reports by Syrian activists, witnesses and doctors.
Even by the blood-soaked standards of the repression that has characterised the Syrian uprising - at least 220 people have died since protests first began on March 18th - this was killing on a different order of magnitude.
Yesterday’s protests were billed as a major showdown between Mr Assad and the ever-swelling ranks of his opponents.
The president presented his decision to lift Syria’s state of emergency as a final offer to the demonstrators. It was a concession, he said, that removed the last pretext for legitimate protest; anyone who took to the streets after his magnanimous gesture was a bandit or a rebel.
Yet tens of thousands were prepared to defy the president once more, even though they were well aware that the security forces had been given license to use unfettered force.
In stark contrast to the first protests in March, when slogans were directed at not at the president but at his policies, those who took to the streets  tore down posters of Mr Assad and statues of his father Hafez, who rules Syria until his death in 2000.
Others demanded the resignation of the “Doctor”, as Mr Assad, a London-trained ophthalmologist, is known, chanting: “The Syrian people will not be subjugated.
Go away Doctor! We will trample on you and your murderous regime.”
Many did not get very far, however. In Azra, a town in the southern province of Deraa, 3,000 protesters marching on the main square came under sustained fire.
Doctors in the town said 10 corpses had been brought to the hospital’s tiny morgue and that other bodies remained on the streets.
The scene was repeated in suburbs of Damascus and nearby towns, where loyalist gunmen joined the police in confronting the protesters.
A four-year-old girl was reportedly among the victims, shot in the head by a sniper according to opposition activists.
“What today proves beyond question is that Syria is the most repressive regime in the Middle East and Assad is the worst dictator,” one activist said. “The people marched peacefully and they were shot in their scores. It is a massacre, a Good Friday Massacre, and a war crime.”
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