TURKEY: Members of the Syrian opposition meeting in Istanbul plead for international help to persuade President Bashar al-Assad to halt a brutal crackdown on a popular revolt

Record ID: 276293

  • Title: TURKEY: Members of the Syrian opposition meeting in Istanbul plead for international help to persuade President Bashar al-Assad to halt a brutal crackdown on a popular revolt
  • Date: 27th April 2011
  • Summary: ISTANBUL, TURKEY (APRIL 26, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ISTANBUL MEETING FOR SYRIA CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS AUDIENCE CHAIRMAN OF MOVEMENT FOR JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT ANAS ABDAH ARRIVING FOR AN INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (English) CHAIRMAN OF MOVEMENT FOR JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT, ANAS ABDAH, SAYING "We have a very clear program for proper and real economic reforms, however at
  • Embargoed: 12th May 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey, Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVACR6WSAW4FPNP6VF5MBZUNWBKX
  • Story Text: Members of the Syrian opposition meeting in Istanbul on Tuesday (April 26) pleaded for international help to make President Bashar al Assad halt a brutal crackdown on a popular revolt against his 11-year rule.
    "Our friends in the West, in Turkey, in the Arab world, if they want to help us, then they can do that by... putting the clearest possible pressure on the Syrian regime to stop targeting civilians," Anas Abdah, Chairman of movement for Justice and Development told Reuters on the sidelines of the gathering.
    Abdah said he was in Istanbul as a representative of signatories of the 2005 Damascus Declaration, which has become an umbrella group for the Syrian opposition, and has a programme for political and economic reform.
    "However at this moment in time all of this is irrelevant and meaningless if targeting of civilians were to continue by the Syrian regime," he said.
    Hundreds of people have been killed by Syrian security forces since pro-democracy protests began six weeks ago.
    The violence intensified in recent days with an assault on Deraa, the heart of the uprising, but opposition members living in exile took heart from reports of dissent within the army.
    Walid Saffour, the London-based president of the Syrian Human Rights Committee, said the Syrian regime is in a cleft stick. According to Saffour, both Turkish and Iranian governments are trying to influence Assad.
    "So far the Iranians have more influence on the Syrian government than the Turkish. I think if the Syrian government are sane enough to listen to the language of logic they will resolve to the advice of the Turkish government," Saffour said.
    "The more the violence, the more the protest in Syria. Now there is no going back to the days of fear to the days of repression. The Syrians want their freedom, they want democracy, they want equality," he added.
    Syria has expelled most foreign journalists, and getting independent corroboration of casualties is impossible.
    But opposition members abroad and rights organisations have collected information seeping out through the Internet, and via contacts with satellite telephones or from people using mobile phones in border areas covered by neighbouring countries networks.
    International criticism of Assad's crackdown, now in its sixth week, was initially muted but escalated after the death of 100 protesters on Friday (April 22) and Assad's decision to storm Deraa, which echoed his father's 1982 suppression of Islamists in Hama.
    Security forces have shot dead 400 civilians in a campaign to crush the uprising against Assad's 11-year rule, Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah said on Tuesday. Another 500 people had been arrested in the last two days, it said.
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