DUSHANBE, June 4, 2011, Asia-Plus — The BBC reports more than 60 people were killed in Syria as thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets after Friday prayers.
At least 53 people are believed to have died when security forces fired on a crowd of about 50,000 people in the central city of Hama. Some accounts put the death toll at more than 100, according to the BBC. The opposition had dedicated the day to children killed during the uprising.
The BBC says scores have been killed in the past few days as troops and tanks attempted to quell protests there. At least two civilians died on Friday, the Local Coordination Committees said.
Syrian state television said about 80 security personnel had been wounded. International media outlets say reports from Syria are hard to verify independently, as foreign journalists are not being allowed into the country.
Human rights groups say more than 1,100 people have been killed since pro-democracy demonstrations began in mid-March.
Organizers of the protests have tried to give each week of the uprising a special theme, and this latest day was dubbed the “Friday of the Children of Freedom”, the BBC noted. It comes at the end of a week when the UN Children”s Fund (UNICEF) highlighted the death of at least 30 young people so far.
The week has also seen a 13-year-old boy from the south, Hamza al-Khatib, emerge as the unofficial icon of the Syrian revolution. Activists said he had been tortured to death by security forces – something the authorities have denied.
By all accounts, the Hama demonstration was one of the biggest in Syria so far with tens of thousands of people joining in, many of them streaming in from the surrounding countryside, the BBC added.
According to the Reuters news agency, security forces opened fire on the protesters in Hama”s old quarter and the nearby Assi square, killing at least 53. Several hundred others were also wounded.
State television said the protesters were “trying to clash” with the security forces and had attacked and set fire to public buildings, including the city courthouse. Armed men had used the presence of the crowds to carry out attacks, and three “saboteurs” had been killed, it added.
Thousands of people also reportedly demonstrated on Friday in and around the capital, Damascus, where there unrest has been limited.
The France Press Agency (AFP) quoted the Syrian League for Human Rights as saying the some 2,000 people marched in the northern district of Rukn al-Din, while police used batons to beat demonstrators in the southern district of Midan. There were also rallies reported in the Damascus suburbs of Barzeh, Jadaidat Artouz, Darayya and Zamalka. Further demonstrations were said to have taken place in the city of Homs, the eastern town of Deir al-Zour, the western towns of Madaya and Zabadani, and the north-western town of Idlib.
There were also reports that the internet service had been cut in several parts of the country, apparently to prevent activists from uploading footage of the protests and repression, the BBC said.
