In Geneva, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned that the crackdown by the government could worsen unless further action is taken. She said the death toll from seven months of anti-government unrest in the country rose above 3,000. “The onus is on all members of the international community to tale protective action in a collective and decisive manner, before the continual ruthless repression and killings drive the country into a full-blown civil war,” Pillay said in a statement.
The protests were the most explicit show of support offered so far by the country’s protest movement to army defectors who have reportedly clashed with loyalists in northern and central Syria in an increasing militarisation of the seven-month-old uprising.
Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso and the Local Coordination Committees, an activist group, said the protests spread from the suburbs of the capital Damascus to the southern province of Daraa, the northern provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and Hassakeh, and the central regions of Homs and Hama, as well as to other areas. The opposition had called for protests after Friday prayers in support of the “Free Officers”, in reference to army defectors who have been fighting regime troops over the past weeks. Clashes between troops and gunmen believed to be defectors left at least 25 people dead on Thursday, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The uprising against Assad’s began in mid-March amid a wave of protests in the Arab world that toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.