Syria: Prisoners freed, protesters arrested
Syrian authorities release 260 prisoners hours after arresting some 200 protesters in Damascus. Witnesses claim troops attacked demonstrators with sticks, clubs, injuring several
Syrian authorities released 260 prisoners, mostly Islamists, from Saydnaya jail on Friday, a human rights lawyer said.
"These are prisoners who have completed at least three-quarters of their sentences and are entitled to be freed but the authorities rarely granted them that right before," the rights lawyer, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
Abdul-Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian Human Rights League, said most of those released on Saturday had been imprisoned at Saidnaya prison in a Damascus suburb where political detainees are usually kept. He said no further details were immediately available and there was no official confirmation.
Shortly prior to the release of the prisoners, Security troops stormed a protest sit-in near the capital Damascus, arresting about 200 people in the midnight raid, activists said Saturday.
Assad supporters drive through Damascus (Photo: AP)
The activists said up to 4,000 people were demonstrating in the town of Douma on the outskirts of Damascus when, around midnight Friday, electricity was cut and the protesters came under attack. The activists spoke on condition of anonymity fearing reprisals.
They said troops attacked the protesters with sticks and clubs, injuring several, but those reports could not be independently confirmed. An eyewitness who drove to Douma Saturday said there were no traces of a fight in the area and shops were open.
The Douma midnight raid capped a day of a relentless government crackdowns on protests which dramatically spread to multiple cities across Syria. The once-unimaginable scenario posed the biggest challenge in decades to Syria's iron-fisted rule.
Security forces opening fire on Friday shot dead more than 15 people in at least six cities and villages, including a suburb of the capital, Damascus, witnesses told The Associated Press. Their accounts could not be independently confirmed.
Funerals were under way Saturday across Syria for many of those killed the previous day.
Also Saturday, the state-run news agency said an armed group attacked an officers' club in the city of Homs on Friday, killing one person and wounding others.
Videos posted on social networking sites Friday night showed protesters in Homs tearing down a large poster of Hafez Assad, the late Syrian president, over the entrance to the Officers Club. The footage could not be independently verified.
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