EU urges Syria to end violence against protesters

EUROPEAN governments have urged Syria to end violence against demonstrators after President Bashar al-Assad sent tanks to crush opposition in the city of Deraa where an uprising against his rule first erupted.

“We send a strong call to Damascus authorities to stop the violent repression of what are peaceful demonstrations,” Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said at a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Rome.

International criticism of Assad’s crackdown, now in its sixth week, was initially muted but escalated after the death of 100 protesters on Friday and Assad’s decision to storm Deraa, echoing his father’s 1982 suppression of Islamists in Hama.