News

Despite a security crackdown, demonstrators hold a 'day of defiance'
against President Bashar Assad in a dozen cities after Friday prayers.
Witnesses, online videos and tweets report gunfire by government forces.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Roula Hajjar, Los Angeles Times

May 7, 2011

Reporting from Cairo and Beirut—

Demonstrations spread to numerous Syrian
cities Friday, with thousands braving a security crackdown in what
protesters dubbed a "day of defiance" against President Bashar Assad's government, according to witnesses and videos posted online.

Protesters
claimed that their movement had expanded to all of the country's major
cities from Dara in the south, where the uprising began more than six
weeks ago. They reported protests in various neighborhoods of the
capital, Damascus,
and its suburbs, the northern cities of Aleppo and Latakia, Homs and
Hama in the west, the coastal city of... >>>