If its Friday in Syria, there’s a good bet a large portion of the population is on the streets, protesting in calls for massive reforms to the political system. Today was perhaps the biggest day of protests yet, with several hundred thousand protesters nationwide.
Indeed, the nationwide number could reach one million, as around half a million were reported in the city of Hama alone, which has been the site of some of the biggest recent crackdowns and, consequently, has seen massive rallies.
The violence seemed comparatively down today, despite the massive size of the crowds, and nationwide only 13 were reported killed. This may be a tacit acknowledgement by the Assad regime that the crackdowns are only encouraging more demonstrations.
Indeed, the violent crackdowns seem to be a big reason why the demonstrations have gotten so big in the first place. Starting with just a few hundred demonstrators in Daraa, the movement has grown nationwide, and now includes a significant chunk of the overall population. Violence clearly isn’t working, but it doesn’t seem like the regime has any other answers, beyond empty promises of reform.
A picnic compared to Yemen. While full scale warfare is in progress against the population of Yemen, including army tanks, helicopters, airforce — with some help from US drones — that somehow does not really get any attention, except on this site. The rest of the media is pretty much silent about it. Makes one suspicious about any news whatsoever. No matter how bad things get in Syria, one can be forgiven for not quite believing much of anything, if attrocities such as in Yemen are allowed to go on.
That's not too bad considering that the CIA put them up to it. ~snicker, snicker~