(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
UNICEF condemns Assad’s brutality toward children
CAIRO – Syrians poured into the streets on Friday in some of the largest antigovernment protests yet despite the shutdown of much of Syria’s Internet network, which has been crucial to demonstrators’ ability to mobilize and a major source of information for those outside the country.
The crowds protesting the authoritarian rule of President Bashar al-Assad appeared fueled in part by escalating anger about the torture and killing of a 13-year-old boy. Witnesses said protesters in dozens of communities on Friday dedicated their marches to him and other children killed during the uprising.
They defied the continuing brutal crackdown that has killed more than 1,000 people, with hundreds more rounded up in mass arrests.
On Friday, more than 30 protesters were killed in the city of Hamah, according to Rami Abdelrahman, a human rights monitor. That report could not be immediately confirmed.
The boy who was killed, Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, has become a symbol of government oppression after a video of his mutilated body was circulated on YouTube.
We won’t forgive, we will kill the child killer,” chanted protesters in Homs, a center of dissent, according to a witness who gave his name as Mohamed. “We will continue until your end.
Earlier this week, Unicef issued an unusual statement describing “extreme violence against children in Syria.
We are particularly disturbed by the recent video images of children who were arbitrarily detained and suffered torture or ill-treatment during their detention, leading in some cases to their death,” the statement said.
Though Unicef has issued more general warnings about the effects of recent unrest in the Middle East on the lives of children there, the statement is the first time since the Arab Spring began that the organization has called on a specific government to investigate what it called “horrific acts” against children.
HRW documents Syrian torture of children
==
==
8 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
“This video, said to have been filmed in Hama on Friday, shows a crowd of protesters fleeing from live gunfire.”
more videos here
Author
Just noticed this on the twitter side of the linked page above:
It’s mindnumbing…..
“Syrian soldier’s very graphic, sickening ‘trophy video’ of dead protesters in Dara’a”
warning: extremely graphic
and saw the pictures of his body. I’ve seen some pretty horrific things over the years and I continued to be horrified and angered that a human being could do this to another, especially a child.
…my media player has been down for a week, so I can’t watch your vids. Just the words alone make it horrifying enough.
I saw a clip on Russia Today, yesterday (6/4/11), which could be titled, “Incredible Video from the Jefferson Memorial”. It is quite shockingly brutal. Shows police being very violent with demonstrators at the Dance-Romp at the Jefferson.
In particular, there was a fairly long clip of the police attacking Iraq veteran turned peace activist Adam Kokesh. Kokesh was thrown violently to the ground on concrete steps One cop had his hands around Kokesh’s neck; it looked like he was strongly strangling him.
Since my media player is down, I can’t watch any of the youtube/russiatoday vids, so I don’t know what, if any show this. I searched ‘youtube/russiatoday/adamkokesh’ and found quite a few. If interested, take a look.
Story: here
.