Syria arrests prominent rights activist, continues killing of civilian dissidents

Abdel Karim Rihawi, head of the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights since 2004, was arrested on Thursday, activists said, as the Syrian army shot dead 11 people in a western town near the Lebanese border and stormed a northwestern town near Turkey’s border

Mr. Rihawi was arrested at 3:00 pm (1200 GMT) in the Havana cafe in Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP in Nicosia, adding they had not heard from him since the arrest.

Several key opposition figures have been in and out of jail since protests erupted against the regime of President Bashar Al Assad in mid-March. But this marks the first arrest for 43-year-old Rihawi.

He has been a critical source of information for international media in a country where the movement of reporters is restricted by authorities and where a harsh crackdown on protests has left over 2,000 dead, rights group say.

Syrian security forces killed at least 14 people on Thursday in the pursuit of anti-regime protesters while the United States and Turkey agreed on the need for a “transition to democracy.”

Meanwhile, the Syrian army shot dead 11 people in a western town near the Lebanese border on Thursday and stormed a northwestern town near Turkey’s border, activists said.

The shooting in the western town of Qusair also wounded many others, according to several Syrian human rights and activists groups.

Anti-government protests are common in Qusair and, combined with the early morning assault on the town of Saraqeb near the Turkish border, reflected the determination of President Bashar Al Assad to crush the five-month old uprising despite mounting international condemnation.

The US imposed new sanctions on Wednesday, and a flurry of foreign diplomats have rolled through Damascus urging President Assad to end a campaign of killing that rights groups say has left about 1,700 dead since mid-March. Turkey’s foreign minister, a day after meeting with President Assad, on Wednesday renewed his condemnation of the attacks.

The White House said President Barack Obama spoke with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to underscore his deep concern about the Syrian government’s use of violence against civilians.

It said the two agreed on Thursday that the violence in Syria must stop and that the demands of the Syrian people for a transition to democracy must be met. Obama and Erdogan agreed to consult closely on the situation in the coming days.

A U.S.-based international human rights groups released a report Wednesday night accusing Syrian authorities of targeting medical facilities, health workers and their patients. It called on the government to safeguard doctors’ obligations to provide neutral and ethical care for civilians.

Physicians for Human Rights said security forces control access to hospitals, and many injured civilians in need of critical care are forgoing treatment because they fear being detained and tortured if they seek care at government-controlled medical facilities.

“In addition to the widely reported atrocities committed by the government, PHR has received reports of serious violations of medical neutrality in Syria,” a statement by the group said.

It also quoted a group of Syrian physicians as saying 134 doctors have either been detained by the government or have disappeared.

The Obama administration, which announced new sanctions Wednesday, is preparing for the first time to explicitly call for Prsident Assad to step down, officials have told the AP. The moves are a direct response to Mr. Assad’s decision to escalate the crackdown by sending the army into opposition hotbeds.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asked why the United States has not yet called for Syria’s president to step down, said Washington wants other nations to add their voices, according to an interview by the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley released on Thursday.

In an excerpt of the interview released by CBS, Clinton also said what was really necessary to pressure President Assad was to sanction Syria’s oil and gas industry, saying “we want to see Europe take more steps in that direction.”

The new sanctions imposed on the Syrian regime affect the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria and its Lebanon-based subsidiary, the Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank, for what the US says are their links to human rights abuses and to illegal weapons trade with North Korea.

Mobile phone company Syriatel was targeted because it is controlled by “one of the regime’s most corrupt insiders,” said David Cohen, the US Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

The action freezes any assets the firms have in US jurisdictions and bans Americans from doing business with them. But they may not have much immediate economic impact because the US already severely limits trade and economic ties with Syria.