Report: Syrian operation can be Crime against humanity - voice of America

An image taken of uploaded images on YouTube shows hundreds of thousands of Syrian anti-government demonstrators in the floods in the streets of the central city of Hama on July 1, 2011

Amnesty International, explains the forces of Syrian security may have committed crimes against humanity during a deadly month last in a town near the Lebanese border.

Citing the evidence, the Group of accused London-based rights Syria of rounding of the scores of male residents of Talkalakh and torture, most of them, at least nine people die in custody.

In a report released Wednesday, Amnesty said that the attack appears to be part of a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population," which constitutes crimes against humanity.

The Group urged the United Nations Security Council to refer to the international situation in Syria to the Criminal Court.

On Tuesday, the Syrian Government forces opened fire on civilians in the Centre of the city of Hama, killing at least 11 people. The militants, said that the shooting took place after that troops tanks to the outskirts of the city in apparent preparation for assault.

In response, the residents implemented dozens of road and burned debris dams to prevent tanks ringtone now advance the city. Hama residents burning tires and garbage cans and established sand barriers and other obstacles to block the onslaught expected.

Security forces also mounted a second attack Tuesday in the Northwest of the Idlib province.

The United States and Britain urged the Syria to immediately withdraw its forces from Hama and other cities.

Reuters quoted a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry Tuesday that the call to the Security Council of the United Nations to take a stand firm against what he called "unacceptable, fierce army crackdown the Syria.".

Hama is one of the centres of opposition to the autocratic rule of 11 years President Bashar al-Assad and was the site of an anti-Assad Friday gathering that attracts hundreds of thousands of demonstrators.

Monday, soldiers sealed off the coast of the city and raided houses, one month after the withdrawal of the forces of the Government. At least 20 people were arrested in the ongoing suppression of the Syria on dissent.

Unlike its European partners and the United States, the France said that Mr. Assad has lost his legitimacy to rule. But a French campaign for their condemnation of the repression of the United Nations has met with resistance, Russian and Chinese.

But the Minister for Foreign Affairs Alain Juppe - who held talks in Moscow last week-, said Tuesday, and there are signs that Russia begins to question his policy of the Syria. Juppe said that he tried to sway his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, but that the Russia is always threatening to veto any United Nations resolution against the Syria.

Rights groups say the forces of Syrian security killed in less than 1 300 civilians since mid-March in trying to suppress the uprising against the Government. The Syrian Government said terrorist and Islamic militants have killed hundreds of security during the same period.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

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Restive city be a Test of Syrian - New York Times

The scene of the biggest protests yet and haunted by memories of a fierce crackdown a generation ago, Hama has emerged as a powerful challenge to President Bashar al-Assad. In just days, demonstrations and uncertain Government response to them have highlighted the potential scale of the dissent in the Syria, absence of the Government of a strategy to end and the difficulty of Mr. Assad faces in rejecting this dissent as disorders religious inspiration with foreign aid.

Hama is still far from the liberated territory the most fervent is said, with perhaps more hope that evidence. But a Government decision last month to withdraw his forces gave the streets of demonstrators, who tried to develop an alternative model to robust repression as a trademark of Baathist rule. Residents interviewed by phone said they began to work collectively to acts as small as a downtown square and as vast as the Organization of the defence of certain districts of cleaning.

More critical, the scenes of enormous, peaceful gatherings y Friday, with their voices of dissent in Egypt and Tunisia earlier this year, served as a critic convincing version of the Government of the events, who won in large segments of the Syrian society. Throughout the uprising nearly four months, the Government indicated to the death of hundreds of its forces, in particular in the event still violent disturbance of Jisr al-Shughour in the North, to argue that the agitation is the product of the Islamist radicals with support from abroad.

Hama was peaceful for weeks, but Monday, the security forces returned to its periphery, perform arrests. These forces has killed at least 11 Tuesday even more raids, said activists. Each incursion has executed opposition brandishing what an activist called a medieval arsenal: slope stones, sand and, in his account not confirmed, bows and arrows.

"There is no easy solution to Hama," Peter Harling, an analyst based in Damascus with the International Crisis Group, said in an interview.

"The regime has made considerable progress in terms of convincing people in Syria and abroad that there was a component army to the movement of protest and that its security forces focused much on this component", he added. "Almost two weeks later the regime gets embedded in the exact opposite, once again to his own business."

Since the insurgency broke out in mid-March, the Government has wavered between the severe repression and tentative reform. Hama has emerged as a microcosm of this transfer strategy which has confused even the supporters of the Government.

After protests in Hama on 3 June, when the 73 killed as security forces people and order hundreds, residents, say diplomats and officials an agreement was struck in which protests were authorized as long the property is not damaged. In the weeks that followed, events gathered momentum, culminating with scenes of Friday that suggest, at least in Hama, the opposition to the Government was far from being marginal.

Since then, the Government's strategy has moved again. The responsible Governor of Hama, Ahmad Khaled Abdulaziz, was fired Saturday. His replacement rumors is Walid Abaza, a former head of security policy would have a role in the events of February 1982, when a struggle between the Government and the Islamic armed opposition culminated in Hama. More than four weeks, the Government resumed the Central Syrian city, killing at least 10,000 people and parts of the old city of flattening. Hundreds of soldiers were also killed.

Although the security forces sometimes enter the city last month, they returned in force for the first time Monday, making dozens of arrests. Their intention, however, is uncertain. Unlike Daraa, southern Syria city where begins the uprising, the military remained on the outskirts of Hama. After accumulation reported over the weekend, some activists said dozens of tanks have even withdrawn, in another sign of confusion.

Hwaida Saad in Beirut has contributed reporting.

Tanks Syrian Hama deployment after large protest - Reuters

AMMAN, July 3. Sun, July 3, 2011 6 pm EDT

(AMMAN, July 3 Reuters) - Syrian tanks were deployed at the entrance of the city of Hama, activists and residents, said Sunday, two days after he saw the largest protest against President Bashar al-Assad since an uprising began three months ago.

Dozens of people are being arrested in the neighbourhoods on the edges of Hama. ". The authorities seem to have opted for a military solution to subdue the city, "Rami Abdel Rahman, President of the Syrian human rights observatory, stated to Reuters."

Hama, 210 km north of Damascus, was the scene of the bloodiest in the modern history of the Syria episode, when troops killed up to 30,000 people in an assault in 1982 to end an uprising led by Islamists against President Hafez Al-Assad Assad, the late father iron rule. (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis; editing by David Stamp)

Syrian President fires Hama Governor - voice of America

An image taken of uploaded images on YouTube shows hundreds of thousands of Syrian anti-government demonstrators in the floods in the streets of the central city of Hama on July 1, 2011

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fired the Governor of the province of Hama, where tens of thousands took to the streets the day before calling for the overthrow of the President.

News Agency State SANA announced the dismissal Saturday, but gave no reason for political manoeuvre.

Friday, activists said Syrian forces has killed at least 14 people during clashes at the national level with the demonstrators.  They say protests Friday were some of the largest since demonstrations against the Government of Assad broke in March.

Protesters gathered Friday near the Turkish border, as well as in the central Syria and areas of the capital, Damascus.

Rights groups say that more than 1,400 people were killed by the forces of security since mid-March, most of these unarmed demonstrators.

Details of the events in Syria are difficult to confirm independently because the Government allows very few foreign journalists in the country and limit their movements.

The latest violence comes as American State Secretary Hillary Clinton, said the clock is ticking for the Syrian Government.

Clinton made the comments Friday to the "community of democracies" in the capital of the Lithuania, Vilnius. '  She said the Syrian Government must hold a genuine reforms or facing increased resistance.

Clinton also said Assad efforts to reach out to the opposition at a meeting earlier this week was not enough.  She added that allowing a meeting of the opposition in Damascus, while deploying tanks North sends a mixed message.

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