Syrian dissidents urge US to call for Assad to go

SYRIAN dissidents are urging US President Barack Obama to call on Syria’s president to quit power immediately and to press for UN sanctions against Damascus.

Radwan Ziadeh said he and other dissidents told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that they need “President Obama to address the Syrian people and ask President Bashar al-Assad to step down immediately”.

“We need actually the US to lead at the Security Council to get more sanctions at the UN level, also to refer the crimes against humanity committed in Syria to the international criminal court.”

The US and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Assad and other members of the regime but the UN Security Council has failed to even issue a condemnation of the deadly crackdown against demonstrators.

UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillay warned Syrian authorities the “world is watching” their crackdown against protesters and attempts at imposing a news blackout were not working.

“The government has been trying to keep the world blind about the alarming situation in the country by refusing access to foreign journalists, independent human rights groups and to the fact-finding mission mandated by the Human Rights Council. But they are not succeeding.

“The world is watching and the international community is gravely concerned,” warned Pillay, adding that she stands in solidarity with protesters and families of victims of the crackdown.

She reiterated that the government must halt the violence immediately and that an international and independent probe must be launched to investigate the deadly crackdown.

The UN Security Council was to hold a second day of talks on Syria after President al-Assad’s tanks launched one of the regime’s deadliest assaults on demonstrators on Sunday. Some 140 were reported killed, the UN said. Three more civilians were killed in Hama, including brothers, Khaled and Fateh Kanil, who died when pro-Assad “shabbiha” militiamen fired at their food-laden car.

A brief riot appeared to have broken out late on Monday at Hama’s main prison. Two shabbiha militia buses were seen heading there at night and smoke rose from the compound as the militiamen shouted “God, Syria, Bashar, only” from inside.

Tanks pounded residential neighbourhoods across Hama, the scene of a 1982 massacre, after evening prayers on Monday, the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, witnesses said.

State news agency SANA said “hundreds of masked gunmen on motorbikes” set fire to the main law court in Hama.

Human rights campaigners said assaults by Assad’s forces across Syria had killed at least 27 civilians.

That brought the total to about 137 dead throughout Syria in the past three days, 93 of them in Hama, according to witnesses.

Hama’s plight prompted many Syrians to stage solidarity marches since the start of Ramadan, but Assad’s tough response suggests he will resist calls for change that have swept Syria and much of the Arab world this year.