DAMASCUS: Syria’s pro-democracy movement has reached out to the powerful army ahead of Friday protests that have become a weekly ritual, appealing to soldiers to join their cause.
"We urge our supporters to deliver a message to free soldiers in the Syrian army so that hand in hand the guardians of the homeland join our peaceful revolution," said Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook group spurring anti-regime protests.
This week’s protests are being promoted under the slogan "Friday of the guardians of the homeland", a reference to the army and a play on the
words used in the first verse of Syria’s national anthem.
"The army, the people, one hand," said a separate page on Syrian Revolution 2011 alongside a picture of Yusuf Al-Azmah, a national hero who stood up to the French army during the colonial era.
"Hand in hand we will forge the future," the messages read. "The dignity and the army’s victory are above your political maneuvers.
"The martyred soldiers are in our hearts."
Anti-government protesters have used Fridays, the day of weekly Muslim prayer, to rally supporters to their cause and have chosen different slogans each week.
This week’s was clearly aimed at the army whose top commanders are fiercely loyal to the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and hail for the most part from his minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shia Islam.
The army’s feared 4th division, which was sent in to put down protests in the southern town of Daraa, flashpoint of the revolt, is controlled by the president’s brother Maher.
According to human rights groups, more than 1,000 people have been killed and 10,000 arrested in the brutal military crackdown launched by the regime against the protesters.
A Syrian army official told AFP on Thursday that 112 soldiers and security troops had also been killed and 1,238 wounded in the unrest.
An interior ministry official said the number of police officers killed stood at 31 with 619 wounded.
The protests last Friday — held under the slogan "azadi", or "freedom" in Kurdish, and aimed at rallying support from the Kurdish minority — left at least 44 people dead. Several more were slain the following day during funerals for the victims.
Small demonstrations have taken place since last Sunday in various parts of the country but they were quickly dispersed by security forces with no casualties reported.
The government insists the unrest posing the greatest challenge to Assad’s 11-year rule is the work of "armed terrorist gangs" backed by Islamists and foreign agitators.
It initially responded to the protesters by offering some concessions, including the lifting of the state of emergency in place for nearly five decades. Earlier this week it also cut diesel prices by 25 percent.
The measures, however, have been coupled with a brutal crackdown that has met with mounting international condemnation and sanctions by the European Union and the United States directly targeting Assad and top aides.
But the regime has stood defiant, accusing Washington and its allies of meddling in Syria’s internal affairs and incitement.
Activists say the regime has pushed ahead with a campaign of arrests targeting members of the opposition and human rights advocates.
The opposition has dismissed any offer of dialogue saying that could only take place once the violence ends, political prisoners are released and other reforms are adopted.
