A Day After Crackdown in Syria, Activists Regroup

 

Despite promises of reform, Syrian security forces arrested Mahmoud Issa, a prominent opposition figure and former political prisoner, on Tuesday hours after the cabinet approved a bill to rescind emergency rule.

“The city is still mourning its dead,” said a political activist who gave his name as Abu Haydar, speaking by telephone from Homs. “There are security forces everywhere, in ever corner of the city and it is not clear what is going to happen, but we are preparing for demonstrations on Friday.”

On Tuesday, the government tried to placate protesters with declarations of sweeping reform while also issuing harsh threats of reprisals if demonstrations did not come to an end, as one of the Arab world’s most repressive countries struggled to blunt the most serious challenge to the 40-year rule of the Assad family.

The mix of concession and coercion came hours after the police, army and the other forces of an authoritarian state were marshaled to crush one of the biggest gatherings yet by protesters bent on staging an Egyptian-style sit-in in Homs, Syria’s third largest city. At least two people died, protesters said, as the government cleared the square.

The events punctuated a tumultuous day in a monthlong uprising that, like Egypt’s, has the potential to rework the arithmetic of a Middle East shaken with dissent. While Syria lacks Egypt’s population or even Libya’s wealth, its influence has long been strong in the region, given its location, its alliance with Iran and its status as kingmaker in Lebanon.

The complexity of its standing means that the government of President Bashar al-Assad finds advocates in the most divergent of places — from the Shiite Muslim movement of Hezbollah in Lebanon to some quarters in Israel.

The reforms were promised Saturday by Mr. Assad, but had yet to be articulated until Tuesday, when the government announced the repeal of an emergency law in place since the Baath Party seized power in 1963. The repeal must still be approved by Parliament or Mr. Assad, but that amounts to a formality. So does its true impact: the government has yet to show any real sign of easing its relentless grip.

Since the uprising began, the government has vacillated between crackdown and suggestions of compromise, a formula that proved disastrous for strongmen in Tunisia and Egypt. But the combination Tuesday was most remarkable for how divided it was.

Even as protesters buried those killed in Homs, the long-promised reforms ostensibly granted civil liberties, curbed the power of the police and abolished draconian courts. They legalized “peaceful protests” — coded language for those approved by the government — as the Interior Ministry warned in a statement, carried by the official news agency, that it would bring to bear the full breadth of the law against any other kind.

Echoing Egypt and Tunisia, the reforms, on paper at least, went far in meeting protesters’ original demands, which have only grown in depth and scope as the bloodshed has worsened.

“The street is in one world and the president and the regime are in another,” said Wissam Tarif, executive director of Insan, a Syrian human rights group, who was reached by phone.

The announcements followed another government crackdown on protests, this time in Homs, an industrial city near the Lebanese border and location of a famous Crusader castle.

For days, organizers in Syria have sought to replicate the experience of Tahrir Square in Cairo, where hundreds of thousands gathered to demand the end of the three-decade rule of President Hosni Mubarak. The square became a symbol and an instrument of the demonstrations that eventually forced him to resign in February.

Organizers envisioned as its equivalent Abbassiyeen Square, a crucial artery in the capital, Damascus, but were thwarted by security forces. Some organizers said they turned instead to Homs, where funerals on Monday for 14 demonstrators killed a day earlier drew thousands.

Some protesters said the security forces seemed taken aback by the crowds, which grew through the day in both numbers and anger. “A sit-in, a sit-in, until the government falls!” some shouted. “Please go,” a banner implored of Mr. Assad. Mr. Tarif cited witnesses who said protesters had served tea and sandwiches as a chilly night fell, and organizers said mattresses and tents were carted in so protesters could serve in shifts.

Security forces made some attempts to disperse the crowds, but relented until after midnight. Then, protesters said, a mix of soldiers, security forces and police officers surrounded the square and attacked the demonstrators with tear gas and live ammunition after the crowds had dwindled to about 2,000.

Nada Bakri and Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Katherine Zoepf from New York, and employees of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria.