TURKEY: Dead Syrian boy emerges as symbol for protesters against rule of President Bashar al-Assad

Record ID: 279157

  • Title: TURKEY: Dead Syrian boy emerges as symbol for protesters against rule of President Bashar al-Assad
  • Date: 2nd June 2011
  • Summary: ANTALYA, TURKEY (JUNE 01, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF "CHANGE IN SYRIA" CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SYRIAN CENTRE FOR POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES RADWAN ZIADAH, SAYING: "The idea of having such civil torture against 13 years old boy, it is a message for Syrian public because everyone now will ask himself if I join the protest we will have t
  • Embargoed: 17th June 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey, Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA95CC7KZZ11LARV7E9YAKCNGV1
  • Story Text: A childhood snapshot of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib has been emblazoned on posters by protesters across Syria after an internet video of his bloodied corpse sparked international outrage.
    The footage shows the bloated body of a boy, with bullet wounds to his arms, stomach and chest as well as facial and leg bruises.
    Activists say he died after questioning by Syrian police; but authorities deny he was tortured, saying he was killed at a demonstration in which armed gangs shot at guards.
    Either way, analysts believe his death, like the market-seller Mohamed Bouazizi who set himself alight in Tunisia and Neda Agha Soltan whose dying moments were filmed and distributed in Iran, has become a potent symbol to protesters demanding more freedom.
    "The idea of having such civil torture against 13 years old boy, it is a message for Syrian public because everyone now will ask himself if I join the protest we will have the same? But actually the action was the opposite of that. More people joined the protests, more people became angry even their supporters. People decided to go to the streets against the brutality of Syria regime and most important to see that Hamza al-Khatib became an icon for Syrian revolution," said Radwan Ziadeh, head of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies, on the fringes of a gathering of democracy activists in the Turkish town of Antalya.
    Rights groups say more than 10,000 people have been arrested in 10 weeks of protests raging in many parts of Syria.
    Some 1,000 civilians have been killed in the unrest, causing the United States and the European Union to impose sanctions on Assad.
    They, along with Syria's close neighbor Turkey, have all condemned Assad's repression of protests.
    One of the participants in the Turkish conference, who fled from Syria two weeks ago and requested his identity be withheld for his own safety, said protesters were coming under heavy fire from government forces.
    "Latakia is like a warfront. You cannot believe, when you walk in the streets of Latakia you find sandbags and behind these sandbags are troops, armoured personnel carriers, snipers. More than 25 snipers are mounted in two main streets of Latakia. These snipers silence us," he said.
    Turkey, which shares an 800 km (500 mile) border with Syria, has become increasingly critical of Assad as the bloody crackdown against demonstrators has worn on.
    But unlike the West, Ankara has not taken concrete action against Assad, who removed restrictions on Turkish imports in the last three years, resulting in billions of dollars of Turkish goods flowing to Syria.
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