A man and children in a camp for Syrian refugees in the town of Yayladag, Turkey, on Thursday.
SEBNEM ARSU and KATHERINE ZOEPF June 9, 2011
KARBEYAZ, Turkey — The Turkish government has begun creating a second camp to house Syrian refugees after 1,050 more people crossed the border on Wednesday and Thursday, and a top United Nations official appealed to Damascus to stop the bloodshed that has led people to flee.
In Geneva, Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, called on Syria to stop the “assault on its own people.”
“It is utterly deplorable for any government to attempt to bludgeon its population into submission, using tanks, artillery and snipers,” Ms. Pillay said in a statement. “I urge the government to halt this assault on its own people’s most fundamental human rights.”
Ms. Pillay said reports suggested that more than 1,100 had been killed, and “10,000 or more” detained.
Since violent clashes broke out last weekend in Jisr al-Shoughour, a northern Syrian town close to this border, more Syrians have been fleeing into Turkey, some bearing tales of black-clad gunmen opening fire on protesters without warning. Many other Syrians, camped out in scrubby fields within sight of the Turkish border, are ready to follow them at the first sign that security forces are pursuing them, those who have crossed say.
Some preferred to seek shelter at the new refugee camp, in Yayladag, Turkey.
“It is really very bad in Jisr al-Shoughour,” said a man who looked to be in his 50s, standing by the camp’s fence. “There are many security forces, heavy army, tanks — they are all around.”
A Turkish police patrol asked him to move inside, and he complied, offering a final comment on refugees: “There are more coming here. It is not possible to stay there.”
Speaking Thursday on Turkish radio, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his concern about the growing violence on Turkey’s 500-mile border with Syria, but sought to reassure the world that the crossings would remain open, NTV, a private television station, reported. “It is impossible for us to close down the border,” Mr. Erdogan said.
He added that he had spoken with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, three days ago, and that Turkey was following events in Syria “with concern.”
Syrians began crossing into Turkey after the protests against Mr. Assad’s rule began in April. Many have taken advantage of a porous border and the relaxed border controls put in place last year. Some have gradually returned to Syria on their own; Turkish officials have also provided assistance to nearly 260 people sheltered in a tent city less than 40 miles from Hatay, in Turkey’s southeast.
Even Syrian citizens who had entered Turkey legally were not being granted access to search for their friends and relatives.
“I am in charge of the security of these people here, how can I be sure that these Syrians who are trying to get in are not from Syrian intelligence?” a senior policeman in civil outfit asked, behind the bars at the main entrance of the Yayladag camp.
Around the corner, toward the back of the compound, dozens of people — children, women and men — were wandering around trees and tents. Children played on swings in a small outdoor playground.
Residents of nearby villages said that there are thousands camping in Syria just over the borderline, and that many had penetrated through several unofficial crossings. Many of the villages were split between the two countries by borders drawn in the 1920s.
“The military police is now registering around 55 people who have crossed into my land, which is basically an arm’s length from Syria,” said Siddik Donmezer, 42, the owner of a small farm on the Turkish side of the border. Describing the situation in Jisr al-Shoughour, he said, “The regime security forces cut their electricity and randomly storm into their homes in search of youngsters, and once they are taken you never hear back from them.” He said that his cousin, who lives in the Syrian town, describe tanks rolling in the streets.
As he spoke, around seven minibuses filled with children, crossed through the village on way to the second refugee camp, just been established in Altinozu, another residential township by the border.
In Guvecci on Wednesday, about 10 miles from the Syrian border, people overlooked a field in Syria where groups of Syrians, mostly from Jisr al-Shoughour, have camped while trying to decide whether to flee to Turkey.
The circumstances surrounding the violence in Jisr al-Shoughour and some other towns remains murky.
The government has claimed that armed groups it called terrorists had attacked its security forces, possibly after donning military uniforms and infiltrating military ranks. Opposition people, meanwhile, say that military forces opened fire on soldiers who refused orders to fire on civilians or who had defected.
The official Syrian government news agency, SANA, reported Wednesday that members of “terrorist groups” had dressed in military uniforms and filmed themselves committing crimes in order to “manipulate the photos and videos and distort the reputation of the army.” SANA also reported that terrorists had faked a mass grave near a building used by Syria’s security services.
Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian human rights advocate who is a visiting scholar at George Washington University in Washington, disputed the report. “Of course it is not true,” he said in a telephone interview.
“These armed gangs are the Syrian Army, killing its own members because they are refusing to open fire,” Mr. Ziadeh said. “But state TV cannot say that there are soldiers defecting because it needs to keep discipline in the army against the Syrian people. Always when you hear Syrian TV, you have to believe the opposite.”
A Damascus-based activist named Sami said that three of his relatives from Jisr al-Shoughour had reported that troops from the Syrian Army’s elite Fourth Division, which is led by Maher al-Assad, the brother of the Syrian president, were being brought into the restive region “to finish the soldiers’ uprising quickly.”
The Associated Press also reported that the Fourth Division, far better trained and better equipped than other Syrian Army units, had been sent to the region. If the reports are true, they could suggest another, more forceful crackdown in the coming days.
“The regime is very angry to see soldiers and officers with civilian protesters,” Sami said. “The regime talks about ‘armed groups’ but couldn’t show any photos.”
Joshua Landis, a scholar of Syria and the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said the government’s version of events was possible. All Syrian men, he said, must perform military service, and even those who were no longer in the reserves might still have their old uniforms.
The question of military defections, he said, was absolutely crucial for both sides. “Defectors are the opposition’s only hope,” Mr. Landis said. “They hoped the Syrian Army would go the way of Egypt and turn on their president. But this is not happening.”
“The regime is playing that the military is going to stay true because, if it does stay true, there’s no way the opposition can win,” Mr. Landis said. “Bashar al-Assad has modern tanks and helicopters, a well-trained army, and lots of firepower. The opposition has Facebook.”
Meanwhile, Syrian activists reported that protests continued elsewhere, including in the capital, Damascus, in the well-to-do district of Sha’alan, an area with fashionable stores and food stalls.
Human rights advocates circulated a video showing what appeared to be no more than several dozen protesters carrying signs and chanting antigovernment slogans while blocking a street.
But Razan Zeitouneh, a Syrian human rights lawyer, said that the protest drew “about 300” people in the end in what she called the largest protest to date “in the heart of Damascus, in such wealthy area in Damascus.”
Syria’s protest movement has, to date, had very little participation from the wealthy Sunni merchant classes, Syria’s traditional urban elite, so protests like the one in Sha’alan may be a sign that the mood in such areas is shifting, analysts say.
Lina Mansour, a Syrian activist who attended the Sha’alan protest, said the demonstrators chanted, “We are supporting you, Jisr al-Shoughour.”
“The moment we started gathering, dozens of security people appeared,” Ms. Mansour said. “They started bashing cars and beating protesters. They dragged women and men, and one girl was brutally beaten. It’s extremely hard protesting in Damascus.”
Sebnem Arsu reported from Karbeyaz, and Katherine Zoepf from New York. Reporting was contributed by Liam Stack from Cairo; Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; David Jolly from Paris; and an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria.
Thousands in Cairo Return to Tahrir Square to Protest the Slow Pace of Change By LIAM STACK Published: July 1, 2011
CAIRO — Thousands of protesters returned to Tahrir Square here on Friday to voice frustration with what they called the slow pace of change five months after the revolution. The demonstration occurred just days after renewed clashes between protesters and the police left hundreds injured and underscored the lingering distrust between Egyptians and a police force long seen as a pillar of the former government.
The demonstrations in Cairo on Friday underscored the distrust between Egyptians and the police force. One of the protesters put his grievances in writing.
Throughout the afternoon, protesters spilled from Tahrir Square to nearby landmarks, including Parliament, the Interior Ministry and the headquarters of the country’s state-run television network.
“The people demand the execution of Habib,” they chanted, referring to the former interior minister Habib el-Adly, playing on a popular antigovernment slogan from the days of the revolution. “There is still a revolution in Tahrir!”
Despite the pounding summer sun, protesters turned out to demand justice for those killed during the revolution, who are seen as martyrs for democracy. Few issues crystallize the lack of trust between rulers and the ruled here more than the prosecution of former officials, including police officers, accused of the violence that claimed more than 850 lives during the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak .. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/hosni_mubarak/index.html?inline=nyt-per .. in February.
In May, Mr. Adly was convicted of corruption and money laundering and sentenced to 12 years in prison. But a separate trial on charges of killing protesters was postponed last week for a month, setting off clashes outside the courthouse between the police and relatives of those who were killed. Mr. Mubarak has so far avoided prosecution, deemed too ill to stand trial.
On Thursday, a court in the port city of Alexandria postponed until September a verdict in the case of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man who witnesses said was beaten to death by two plainclothes police officers on a sidewalk near his home. In death, he became a focal point of antigovernment anger.
Protesters in Alexandria also took to the streets on Friday, rallying outside the Qaed Ibrahim mosque and blocking traffic on the Corniche, a seaside boulevard that runs the length of the city.
Legal proceedings have begun against former officials like Mr. Adly, said Heba Morayef, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Cairo, but victims’ families and their lawyers are often barred from court sessions. Cases have also been repeatedly adjourned and postponed for a month or more. All this contributes to a sense that the ruling military council’s commitment to justice is superficial and that the families of those killed during the revolution are not getting a fair deal.
“We cannot rebuild trust between the people and the police through cosmetic measures,” Ms. Morayef said. “It can only happen through a genuine and comprehensive prosecution that will inspire confidence in the justice system and punish police for their abuses.”
No one has yet been convicted of ordering or participating in the deaths of protesters, and this week’s clashes were believed to have been set off when the police turned away families of those killed from an event at a theater in Giza to commemorate them. A belief that is gaining currency among Egyptians is that while Mr. Mubarak may be gone, the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police force, remains above the law.
“Until this day, we have not seen justice served,” said the father of one man killed in the uprising, addressing the crowd in Tahrir Square from a stage set up on the sidewalk. He identified himself only as the father of Mahmoud Khaled. “Our sons have died, and if they were the sons of officers, we would have seen the men who did it arrested within a week.”
Several thousand protesters marched to Parliament and the adjacent office of the prime minister, singing the national anthem and chanting, “The Interior Ministry are thugs!”
Nabila Mohamed Khattab, 53, said she went to Friday’s protest because “nothing has changed.”
Many in the square expressed anger at the ruling military council for not doing more.
One demonstrator, Shady Maher, 26, said: “The military council have been doing the bare minimum to satisfy the people. Yes, they have arrested symbols of the previous regime and they say Mubarak will be put on trial, but people are still being treated with the same disregard as before the revolution.
“The families of the martyrs have been waiting for months for justice, and we have seen nothing yet,” he continued. “It is just not right. This isn’t justice.”
As sunset approached, protesters began to settle into a camp of a dozen white tents, spreading their blankets and vowing to remain in Tahrir Square until their demands for justice were met. “We’ll stay here all night because the people who died, died for us,” said a protester named Ramadan. “We need to give them their rights.”
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