UNITED NATIONS Rights Head Warns Of 'Civil War' In Syria – Al-Jazeera Intl News

International community urged to take immediate action as UN's estimated death toll since protests began exceeds 3,000.

The number of people killed in Syria in violence related to protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government has now reached more than 3,000, the United Nations human rights chief has said, as she has called for "the international community to take immediate measures to protect the Syrian people".

Navi Pillay, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, expressed her deep dismay at the "remorseless toll of human lives", according to a statement released from the body's head office in Geneva on Friday.

"The number of people killed since the violence started in March has now exceeded 3,000, including at least 187 children. More than 100 people have been reported killed in the last 10 days alone," she said.

"In addition, thousands have been arrested, detained, forcibly disappeared and tortured. Family members inside and outside the country have been targeted for harassment, intimidation, threats and beatings.

"As more members of the military refuse to attack civilians and change sides, the crisis is already showing worrying signs of descending into an armed struggle."

"The Government of Syria has manifestly failed to protect its population. Furthermore, it has ignored the international community's calls to co-operate with international investigations," the UN human rights chief said.

Meanwhile, activists said at least 9 people were killed in demonstrations across the country on Friday and that the number was expected to rise, Al Jazeera's Rula Amin reported from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon.

   "The demonstrations spread from Dera'a in the south to the central part of the country in Homs, in Idlib, and to the eastern part in Deir Azzour," Amin said.

"The slogans today were of course, the toppling of the regime, a call on Syrian officers and soldiers to refuse orders to shoot and a call on international community to provide help and to provide protection for civilians."

International action

Pillay said that the international community must take "protective action in a collective and decisive manner", before the violence drives Syria into "a full-blown civil war".

"Sniping from rooftops, and indiscriminate use of force against peaceful protesters - including the use of live
ammunition and the shelling of residential neighbourhoods - have become routine occurrences in many Syrian cities," Pillay said.

Such call by the UN human rights commissioner "will mean very good news for the [Syrian] people, because it will add pressure on the international community to do something," but it is unclear what exactly they expect the world to do, our correspondent Rula Amin said.

Some say they do want military intervention and even welcome it because of the intensity to which Assad has cracked down on the population with violence, Amin said.

"They're talking about no fly zones, to stop the Syrian military and the government from using planes and tanks."

However, one member of the coalition of opposition groups, said the struggle against the Assad regime must remain peaceful.

"There is a pull by some people to take the country towards armed resistance, [but] most people disagree," said Louay Safi, the chair of the political office of the Syrian National Council (SNC).

"The council itself believe the best option it to have unarmed resistance - a peaceful resistance."

"We should avoid civil war at all costs and we believe the regime will fall if the people continue opposing it and the world stops giving support [to the government] from the outside," Safi added.

Arab League

Arab League foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the ongoing unrest in protest-hit Syria, Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh said.

The meeting will "apparently look into what measures they can take against the Syrian regime, after it has refused all recommendations put forward by the League in their last meeting on Syria" ... including a list of political reforms and dispatching a fact-finding mission from the League, an Arab League source said, according to Rageh.

The 22-member Arab League has not yet approved the request but such meetings need only the approval of two members to take place.

Six member states of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) called for such a  meeting on Thursday, demanding on the need address "the situation in Syria, which has deteriorated sharply, particularly in its humanitarian dimensions, and steps that could help end the bloodshed and halt the machine of violence".

In a meeting on September 13, Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo and called on the Syrian authorities to "immediately stop the bloodshed," drawing a testy response from Damascus.

Nabil al-Arabi, the Arab League chief, had met Assad three days earlier and presented him with a 13-point document outlining Arab proposals for reform.

Source:http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/2011101492410996889.html

Lal Masjid deputy cleric likely to face the chop

LAHORE: Maulana Aamer Siddique, the second-in-command (Naib Khateeb) at the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Islamabad, is believed to be in the process of being expelled from his post in the coming days as a penalty for visiting Iran, sources familiar with the matter told The Express Tribune.

Siddique has now been receiving death threats while being labeled a “Shia-sympathiser”, The Express Tribune learnt. Maulana Abdul Aziz (chief cleric of the Red Mosque), whose brother Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, was killed in the operation against Red Mosque militants named “Operation Silence” in July, 2007 is believed to be behind the decision for his removal.

Siddique’s visit to Iran was brought to the forefront by Aziz during his Friday sermon, saying that the visit had hurt the sentiments of the community. In a fiery speech, Aziz allegedly invoked JUI (F) activists, students of the madrassas and activists of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), all groups belonging to the Deobandi School of Islamic theology.

Consequently, Siddique is now all set to be expelled from his existing responsibilities and a formal announcement is likely to be made by Aziz shortly, sources further revealed. Aziz and his wife Umme Hassan, the woman said to be the brains behind the Red Mosque burqa brigade, expressed serious reservations about Aamer’s visit and have asked him to join an Imambargah instead, sources added. The couple refused to meet Siddique and snubbed him when he finally had an opportunity to clarify his position, labeling him an outsider.

Siddique assumed the responsibility of Naib Khateeb on May 17, 2009, replacing Ghazi Abdul Rashid after his death and was also one of the main activists who played a pivotal role in Aziz’s release.

The cleric was part of a ten-member delegation who visited Iran on the invitation of the Iranian Shia council where he is said to have visited the grave (mausoleum) of Ayatollah Khomeini, an act that has deeply enraged his elders. Talking to The Express Tribune, Siddique said he visited Iran on the invitation of the Iranian Shia council along with nine other members, adding that he had been receiving death threats and believed his life to be in danger.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2011.

 Source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/271382/lal-masjid-deputy-cleric-likely-to-face-the-chop/

Mourners shot at Tamo funeral, Syria dissidents meet

Syrian security forces killed at least two mourners and wounded several others when they fired on the funeral of murdered Kurdish opposition figure Meshaal Tamo on Saturday, activists said.

Dissidents, meanwhile, lobbied in Cairo for recognition of their newly formed opposition front, the Syrian National Council (SNC), of which Tamo was a member, and on a day which saw 10 deaths reported across Syria.

Two people were killed in the shooting on the funeral procession for the slain Kurdish leader in the city of Qamishli, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP, adding that several others were wounded.

The funeral for Tamo, who was gunned down on Friday in Qamishli in the north, became a mass rally with more than 50,000 demonstrators calling for the fall of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, activists said.

Tamo founded the liberal Kurdish Future Party, which considers Kurds an integral part of Syria, and had been recently released after three and a half years in prison.

His killing also sparked indignation abroad.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton firmly condemned the murder "in the strongest terms," a statement issued on her behalf said.

It added that Tamo's death "follows other targeted assassinations in the past days, which are totally unacceptable.

"These appalling crimes further add to the EU's grave concern over the situation in Syria. All those responsible for and complicit in these crimes must be held accountable."

In Beirut, 50 activists gathered outside the Syrian embassy to demand Assad's departure, and in Vienna 11 people were arrested overnight for invading Damascus's embassy and demonstrating on a balcony.

Police in London arrested seven protesters outside the Syrian embassy, including three men who climbed onto the roof and waved the Kurdish flag.

The United States on Friday charged that Assad's regime was escalating its tactics against the opposition with bold attacks on its leaders, and France said it was "shocked" by the news of Tamo's murder.

Syria closed one of its border gates with Turkey and barred Turks from entering Syria following the Qamishli clashes, Anatolia news agency reported.

Turks were not allowed to enter Syria from the border gate in Nusaybin city in southeast Turkey, just a few kilometres (miles) from Qamishli, local governor Murat Girgin told Anatolia.

The Local Coordination Committees inside Syria, meanwhile, accused Assad's regime of trying to "physically eliminate" opposition figures and "taking advantage of the laxity of the international community."

The official SANA news agency reported "the assassination" of Tamo and said he was killed "by gunmen in a black car who fired at his car."

Elsewhere Saturday, cell phone and landline communications were cut in Qusayr near the central city of Homs, raising fears of a military operation after checkpoints were set up and tanks deployed, the Observatory said.

It reported one killed by security forces in Homs and another three in Hama, and said that the bodies of two people who had been arrested were returned to their families.

In addition to the two killed at the Tamo funeral, two people were killed and 10 others wounded when security forces opened fire at a funeral for three people shot dead in Douma near Damascus on Friday, the rights group added.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has reported that at least 187 children have died in Syria among the estimated total of more than 2,900 people killed since Syria launched its brutal crackdown on dissent in mid-March.

In a rare show of diplomatic support, the foreign ministers of Venezuela and Cuba are to lead a delegation of leftist Latin American states to meet Assad on Sunday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said.

Syrian dissidents, meanwhile, were in Cairo where the Arab League has its headquarters to lobby for recognition of the SNC.

Yasser Najjar, a member of the delegation, told official Egyptian news agency MENA the delegation sought support for the recognition of the SNC, after which it would meet to elect a leadership.

Another 90 members of Syria's opposition gathered in Stockholm for a strategy meeting.

Russia has said it will host opposition figures next Tuesday after President Dmitry Medvedev unexpectedly piled pressure on Damascus to implement reforms announced by Assad.

"If the Syrian leadership is unable to undertake these reforms, it will have to go. But this is something that has to be decided not by NATO or individual European countries but by the people and leadership of Syria," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/50-000-syrians-rally-kurdish-leader-slain-094936203.html