Secret police tell parents of arrested protesters to forget their children and have some more

Mail online ^ | IAN BIRRELL

[ventanax5]

Part of the regime’s survival strategy is to keep out foreign journalists. Agency reporters have been expelled, bloggers detained. Snippets of information leak out through furtive phone calls, Facebook and Twitter, revealing a partial picture of a regime trying to repress dissent with increasing desperation. Last week, however, I spent five days in Damascus and the south of the country where the protests began, talking to political activists, students and ordinary families. Some were too scared to discuss politics; others could not stop. On the surface, everything was normal. The sun shone, tourists trod the ancient streets of Damascus and shoppers were out buying food and spices in the famous covered souk. Syria is a secular state, so men drank beer in a park near my hotel while women in tight jeans held hands with their boyfriends. Everywhere, people were friendly and welcoming. There were, however, many new banners in the streets bearing the nerdish features of Assad, the one-time London eye doctor who became a dictator. Cars and shops brandished new pictures of their leader. And an air of paranoia hung over the city.

[bruinbirdman]

"Syria is a secular state, so men drank beer in a park near my hotel while women in tight jeans held hands with their boyfriends."

Well Barak Hussein Obama al-Kenyata can't have "secular". Where's the Mohammedan Brotherhood?

yitbos

[BBell]

We have an enemy we know in Assad and an enemy we don’t know wants to replace him. I’ll go out on a limb here but I think I would stick with Assad for the time being. After the treatment of Mubarak and his family in Egypt I doubt Assad will go down without a fight.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

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