Hundreds face jail over Syria unrest

Syrian anti-government protesters, some of them wearing their death shroud, march during a demonstration in Banias, Syria. Photo / AP

Hundreds of Syrians have been charged with "degrading the prestige of the state", the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, in President Bashar al-Assad's drive to crush protests against his autocratic rule.

The charge, which carries a three-year prison sentence, was lodged yesterday against hundreds of ordinary people detained in the last few days, particularly in the run-up to Friday prayers which have seen increasingly large pro-democracy demonstrations.

"Mass arrests are continuing across Syria in another violation of human rights and international conventions," said Observatory director Rami Abdelrahman.

Other rights organisations said many male detainees had been beaten severely in a campaign of arrests that included women, teenagers and the elderly but failed to deter protesters' appetite for reforms. Syria already has thousands of political prisoners.

The campaign intensified after a tank-backed army unit, headed by Assad's feared brother Maher, last week shelled and machine-gunned the old quarter of Deraa, cradle of the 6-week-old uprising.

The demonstrations began with demands for political freedom and an end to corruption and now seek the overthrow of Assad, a member of the minority Alawite Shia sect whose family has ruled majority Sunni Muslim Syria for 41 years. Security forces have killed at least 560 civilians in attacks on demonstrators since the protests erupted in Deraa on March 18, according to human rights groups.

Residents of Damascus suburbs, where many were arrested, said roadblocks and arrests had intensified this week in areas around the capital. One resident said she saw plainclothes security forces putting up sandbags and a machine-gun on a road near the town of Kfar Batna yesterday.

An Arab official said the security campaign appeared designed to prevent protests after Friday prayers, the only time Syrians are allowed to assemble en masse - though security forces prevented thousands from reaching mosques last Friday.

"They are putting up roadblocks everywhere to prevent movement ... Assad has decided to use violence. He has not learned from the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions," the official said.