Syria women protesters are targeted in crackdown

Syria in crackdown on women The Australian - May 16, 2011

WOMEN protesters are being targeted as President Bashar al-Assad launches a fresh crackdown on Syria's anti-government demonstrators.   

A female human rights activist was detained as thousands of protesters took to the streets in cities across the country for a "Friday of Free Women" protest in solidarity with those killed or imprisoned in the eight-week uprising.

Up to 850 demonstrators have died since the protests began, the UN said.

Four women were shot dead last week when troops opened fire on protesters in the village of Merqeb near the coastal city of Banias. Dozens of female activists have been arrested.

Human rights activist Catherine al-Talli, 32, was detained by police in the Barzeh district of Damascus at 6pm on Friday.

She was forced off a minibus when it was stopped at a checkpoint by the secret police, who took her away.

"We have no idea where she is," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. "The targeting of women is a new thing. It has angered Syrian society."

Video footage showing the bodies of female protesters killed in Banias has been posted on YouTube.
Six demonstrators were shot dead on Friday, despite an order from the President not to fire on protesters.

At least three more demonstrators were killed yesterday in the border town of Tall Kalakh.

"The security forces, who had been encircling Tall Kalakh since the morning, fired machine guns," a witness said.

A hospital source across the border in Lebanon said a man named Ali Basha, who was admitted to a Lebanese hospital after fleeing Syria with gunshot wounds, had died of his injuries.

More than 500 people, mostly women and children, fled across the border, town councillor Mahmud Khazaal said.

Razan Zeitouneh, 34, a female human rights activist, is wanted by the authorities. She went into hiding in March after she was accused on state television of being a foreign agent.

She had passed on information about conditions in the besieged southern town of Daraa to the foreign press.

Police last week arrested her husband, Wa'el Hammada, who is also an activist.

Two weeks earlier, intelligence officers raided their home, hoping to arrest him. Mr Hammada was not there so they arrested his 20-year-old brother. Neither man has been heard of since.

Ms Zeitouneh said it was too painful for her to think of how her husband was being treated.

"I'm trying not to think about that. Dozens of my friends have been arrested. We all share this great pain," she said.

She dismissed the government's plans for national dialogue as meaningless. "It is a lie," she said. "They have opened a dialogue with individuals who represent only themselves."

She has gone underground but continues to publicise human rights abuses online.