19/10/12
#Syria
Mervat Akram, a physical therapist from #Homs, born in 1974, known of her generosity and diligence in helping all those who need help, never stopped helping, arrested by “state security” forces on Sunday 14 October 2012 while she was donating blood in Al Wa’ar neighborhood in Homs.
Mervat is the sister and mother and daughter of every Syrian today, she saved the brother and father and son of every Syrian, Mervat is our responsibility.

Michigan, USA (PRWEB) July 05, 2012

With the approach of the Olympic Games in London-UK, coincided with the intensification of repression by Assad regime and the barbaric atrocities against Syrian people, Syrian Expatriates organization urges the International Olympic Community to ban the participation of Syrian national team in the upcoming Olympic Games, as a condemnation against Syrian regime atrocities and violation of human rights. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/9299502/London-2012-Olympics-Syrian-athletes-may-compete-under-neutral-five-ring-Olympics-flag.html

Dr Nadim AlSadat, SEO board member, said, ”Although we acknowledge the importance of Olympic Games as a way of unity for all people around the world, however, the calamitous situation in Syria, caused by Assad’s retaliation against our people, and the hideous atrocities committed against Syrians, has impacted every aspect of their life, including the sport activities. Football stadiums have been converted into large detention areas, others have been demolished under the continuous shelling. Athletes were killed, detained, or tortured.”

The Assad’s killing machine didn’t spare the athletes, who had their own share in the Syrian sacrifices. Reported by the Syrian British Solidarity Campaign, a world-winning Boxing champion, Ahmad Wattar, had been detained by Assad security forces, no word of his situation till now.
http://sbsc.org.uk/index.php?limitstart=5

Zaman-alwasl news has reported on 04-11-2012 the death of Jamal Bayerly, Syrian national champion in Karate, in Homs by Assad forces. The same report also stated the death of Hama’s Goal-keeper, Khalid Jerjanzi
http://zaman-alwsl.net/readNews.php?id=25907

According to the HRW report on Syria,”Torture Archipelago” released July 2012, “the Syrian authorities also established numerous temporary unofficial detention centers in stadiums,schools, hospitals, and on military bases.” this demonstrates the extent of brutality and savagery of Assad regime.
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/syria0712webwcover.pdf

SEO urges the IOC to ban Syria’s participation in the upcoming Olympic Games in London, as a strong message of condemnation against Assad regime. SEO asks the Olympic organizing committee to observe a minute of silence in a memory of the 16,000 martyrs, including athletes, who scarifies their lives to establish free and democratic Syria.
http://www.victims.syrianrights.org/

Inside #Syria: ‘What is the world waiting for? For us to die of hunger and fear?’

Editor’s note: CNN correspondent Arwa Damon reported from Baba Amr, a neighborhood in Homs, Syria, a city that has been a flashpoint in a months-long uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. Government forces have shelled parts of the city – especially Baba Amr, a bastion of anti-government sentiment –for two weeks, damaging houses and other buildings and leaving many dead and wounded.

Damon is one of the few international reporters in Syria, whose government has been placing restrictions on journalists and refusing many of them entry. Below is an edited account of what Damon and her team saw and heard from activists in Homs:

This small hall was once filled with laughter. Marriages took place here. Now the echoing sounds are not of joy, but of tragedy.

In this makeshift bunker, some of the families of Baba Amr who have nowhere else to go, huddle in this makeshift bunker. But, it offers them very little comfort.

“We’re not sleeping at night, we’re not sleeping during the day,” a man named Ilham howls. “The children are always crying, the bombs are coming down.”

Often they huddle in near darkness.

Some cover their faces, still afraid of the government’s relentless shelling. They are afraid, they said, they might lose more than they already have. Conditions here are desperate

In hard-hit Baba Amr, about 350 people who’ve fled their homes out of fear or necessity are living in this makeshift bunker.

Restricted by seemingly constant shelling and gunfire outside, they don’t have any medicine, let alone the ability to get to a hospital. Children are getting sick, and one woman recently gave birth there. They have little food – some lentils and rice and a little bread.

They fled here either because their homes were destroyed by shelling, or because the firing was getting too close.

 Just about everyone in the bunker says they’ve either lost a loved one to the violence, or have a loved one who has been detained.

One woman’s son has been detained since the end of august, another woman’s son, this one right here for a month and a half.

We just walked in here and we’ve been swamped, bombarded by these people’s tragic stories here.

Most of them survive on basic staples of rice and lentils taken from a government warehouse nearby, but supplies are running low.

The room is one filled with endless stories of both death and despair.

Safa’as brother and husband were killed when a round struck their home 10 days ago. She can hardly pause to grieve or really comprehend what has happened.

“I have to keep going, I have to live for my children,” she says.

The activists take a moment to gather for our camera. All they want is to tell their stories.

“My husband died on the first day of the bombing, they didn’t let me see his body, it was shredded to pieces, “Umm Khidir recalls.”His blood is still in the streets and feel his son, he’s sick and there is no medicine.

“He keeps crying saying I want daddy, I want daddy, I can’t bring his daddy back, what is the world waiting for? For us to die of hunger and fear?”

The Syrian army has been laying siege to the ancient city of Palmyra, a world heritage site, since early February and shooting at anything that moves from a historic citadel, residents say.

“Palmyra is surrounded by the army from all fronts: the Arab citadel, the olive and palm tree groves, the desert, the city,” one resident told AFP by telephone, adding that the operation began on February 4.

Security forces have set up camp in the citadel which overlooks the Roman ruins and the city of some 60,000 people, said the resident who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.

“Machinegun fire rains down from the citadel at anything that moves in the ruins because they think it is rebels,” he added.

Palmyra’s pristine Roman ruins set off by dramatic desert sunrises and sunsets have earned it the status of a UNESCO protected world heritage site.

It was a key tourist attraction in Syria before unrest against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad erupted 11 months ago. Human rights groups say more than 6,000 people have been killed in the country since mid-March last year.

Other Palmyra residents told AFP said that hundreds of people have fled the city for safety after reports emerged that several local figures have been killed by regime forces.

Adnan al-Kabir, whose family owns the Al-Waha (Oasis) Hotel in the heart of the city, was among three civilians killed by the army, three different sources told AFP.

A YouTube video shows Kabir with a wound to the head apparently caused by gunfire. Friends who knew him identified Kabir in interviews with AFP.

“The majority of the young men have left or are trying to leave, fearing detention. Only elders and state employees stayed behind,” said another resident who managed to sneak out of Palmyra.

Women and girls have been spirited off to safer locations for fear they would be raped by “soldiers who hold nothing sacred,” he said, speaking from a neighbouring country.

Although communications with Palmyra were severed at the start of the campaign, those residents who have managed to get out spoke of daily machinegun and tank fire.

Hundreds of people have fled from the desert city that carved its place in the history books as a caravan stop on the ancient Silk Road and as the home of legendary Queen Zenobia who defied Rome in the third century AD.

“People related and unrelated to rebels are fleeing because security forces are detaining people at random,” said one resident who fled to neighbouring Jordan.

He said he saw tanks and checkpoints all around the city.

Security forces have also set up checkpoints within Palmyra itself, stopping traffic at gunpoint, checking cars and detaining men between the age of 20 and 40, said another resident who escaped from the city.

“Many people have disappeared, we don’t know if they are dead or detained,” said the 31-year-old who was able to get out after five days of siege.

Tanks were also deployed near the Roman ruins at the entrance to Palmyra — a desert city known as Tadmur in Arabic.

According to residents, regime forces have destroyed and set ablaze several olive, palm and date groves using tank and machinegun fire.

“All our resources are concentrated in the gardens: our olives, our dates,” said one resident who fled after security forces stormed and destroyed his garden.

“The gardens near the ruins were hit the hardest. People will have to plant again and wait for 10 years before they see a good season again,” another man said.

Anti-regime activists, mostly loosely organised local youths, had been using the gardens as a meeting point, residents said.

Until this month Palmyra had been spared the deadly violence in the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent, according to activists.

“There was an unspoken understanding between authorities and residents that security forces would stay out of Palmyra if the city behaved,” one resident said.

Residents say Palmyra’s fate was decided after a Sunni general in charge of security in the region was replaced by an Alawite from Assad’s community.