Thursday, April 19, 2012

Syria's carnival that ended in bloodshed



A year on, Syrians are remembering the sit-in in Homs' New Clock Square and the ensuing crackdown that left several dead.

Basma Atassi
Al-Jazeera

"Syrians in Homs are remembering a day that began with a funeral, developed into a sit-in and ended in bloodshed.

The events in the New Clock Square on April 18, 2011, evoke both bitter and sweet memories for the thousands who participated in the largest demonstration in the city centre since the country-wide uprising against President Bashar al-Assad had started.

"It was a day where we thought the Syrian regime was two days from collapsing. A day when all remaining barriers of fears were broken," Ammar, an employee at an internet cafe in Homs, said.

The sit-in in the New Clock Square began as a funeral for seven anti-government protesters killed by the regime forces a day earlier. Tens of thousands participated in the burial at al-Kateeb cemetery.

"On our way back from the cemetery, we started chanting ‘to the clock, to the clock’ and ‘sit-in, sit-in’. And when we passed by the Christian neighbourhood of Hamidiyeh we started chanting “the Syrian people are one’."

"Our Christian brothers were throwing rice, rose petals and water drops from the balconies. It was beautiful," Aboudi, a 17-year-old student in Homs, said.....

'Angry city'

However, despite attempts to restore the business-as-usual mode, Ammar said Homs was forever changed.

"Homs became an angry city. While the upper class had not yet been very involved in demonstrations, the sit-in near their homes moved them. They became an integral part of the protest movement in the city," he said.

The brutal crackdown on the sit-in, Ammar said, was meant to deter activists from attempting to occupy the city centres of the capital, Damascus, and Aleppo, the country’s second city Aleppo.

"I think that Assad saw the new trend of sit-ins and wanted to stop it. Before the Homs protest, there had been a large rally in [the coastal city of] Latakia and another one in [the Damascus suburb of] Douma, but they were not comparable in numbers to the New Clock Square sit-in.

"Assad wanted to teach a lesson to all Syrians through Homs."...."

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