Emboldened by uprising, Syrian clerics speak out

Sheikh Sariya Al Rifai. Inside an old Damascus mosque, Sheikh Sariya Al Rifai departs from state-sanctioned sermons to warn President Bashar Al Assad that the whole country will rise up against him if he does not halt a bloody clampdown against protesters.
“Beware ... all of Syria will erupt if you don’t stop. I hold the leadership responsible for every drop of spilled blood,” Sheikh Rifai said in a sermon marking dawn prayers on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, just as tanks rolled into the Sunni Muslim bastion of Hama.
“I never imagined that the leadership of this country would give such a gift to its people and country ... blood spilling into the streets of Hama and other provinces.”

Sheikh Rifai’s comments earlier this month inside the Zaid Bin Thabet mosque were seen on an Internet video and confirmed to Reuters by worshippers who attended the prayer service. A pillar of a conservative religious establishment linked to the state, Sheikh Rifai comes from a long line of Koran scholars who have taught generations of devout followers and refrained from challenging the iron rule of the Assad family. But as the civilian death toll from a crackdown on five months of protests rose past 1,700, Sheikh Rifai joined 19 leading clerics to sign a rare petition, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, blaming President Assad for wreaking carnage on the eve of Ramadan, “the month of mercy and compassion.”

Clerics detained

In an effort to preempt dissent, security forces in Ramadan stepped up detentions of clerics known for attracting large crowds by their fiery anti-government sermons. Others have gone into hiding, activists said. In Deraa, where the uprising erupted in March, Sheikh Ahmad Sayasneh remains under house arrest in a residential compound close to the city’s security headquarters after criticizing authorities early on, residents say. “In Ramadan, sheikhs who have spoken against the regime are being rounded up and arrested because they are influencing people and whip up sentiment to join protests,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The dissenting preachers contrast with a majority of Sunni Muslim clerics dependent on the state for their livelihood who – although they may harbor misgivings about President Assad’s rule – deliver sermons that shower support on his ruling family. Pillars of the establishment, symbolized by prominent Islamist scholar Sheikh Said Ramadan Al Bouti and the Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Al Hassoun, remain solidly behind President Assad and have implored Syrians on state media to stay off the streets. From the pulpit of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, one of Islam’s holiest sites, Sheikh Bouti has equated those calling for the downfall of the regime with “those seeking the demise of Islam.”

“They are scum,” he added on several occasions.

Witnesses say the numbers of worshippers at the historic and once-overcrowded mosque have dwindled, as its clerics are seen as mouthpieces for Assad, while other places of worship have turned into magnets for protesters. Sheikh Muaz al-Khatib, banned for the last 15 years from preaching after he was removed from his post as Imam of the Umayyad mosque, criticised pro-Assad clerics for not condemning the intensifying military assaults on protesters.
“The big symbols of the religious establishment should be the umbrella that brings together the state and people to prevent bloodshed,” Khatib, who was jailed for a month during the uprising, told Reuters from Damascus.
Khatib is one of a few prominent anti-Assad clerics who remained in Syria, enduring decades of repression. Many others fled after the Baath Party’s brutal repression of the Muslim Brotherhood, culminating in the 1982 crushing of an armed Islamist uprising in Hama in which many thousands were killed.

FANNING RELIGIOUS PASSIONS

President Assad’s assault on Hama at the start of Ramadan showed disregard for majority Sunni sentiment, said Andrew J. Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Tabler described the assault as “a bizarre calculation for a minority Alawite dominated-regime that carried out a massacre in the same city in 1982.” Sunni disquiet toward Syria’s Alawites, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, has built up in the last few months as security forces shoot at funerals in and around mosques and the army encircle leading mosques ahead of Friday, witnesses and human rights campaigners say. In Hama, damage to at least a dozen mosques not only has inflamed passions among its religiously conservative majority Sunni residents but revived memories of a time when the city’s centre and symbols of Islamic heritage were razed.
“They want to provoke a Sunni backlash to plunge Syria into sectarian warfare,” said Sheikh Ahmad al-Alawani, who preached at the Muaz Ibn Jabal mosque in Hama, one of the mosques that had shell holes from the Ramadan assault.
In the eastern city of Deir Al Zor, security forces scribbled graffiti of “No God but Bashar” instead of the “No God but Allah” on several mosques in the Juwra neighborhood. In a country where political gatherings are banned, mosques remain a focus of the protests. Authorities have also shown on state television alleged confessions of detainees who have talked about how mosques have been used as centers to store weapons for armed groups they say are instigating the uprising.
“We are not afraid. Down with tyrants,” Internet video footage showed hundreds of worshippers chanting during Ramadan night prayers at the Rifai mosque in the Kfar Souseh neighborhood of Damascus.
Sheikh Majd Ahmad Maki, a prominent cleric who fled his hometown of Aleppo in 1980, and a main figure among Syria’s Religious Scholars Association that brings together over 150 leading Islamic scholars in exile, said that Assad cannot keep relying on establishment clerics to justify the killings.

“The regime with its killings has embarrassed even those clerics closest to him. I am not finding now any cleric with a turban who openly supports the killings perpetrated by Assad,” Sheikh Maki said from Saudi Arabia.

Furthermore, Syrian military and security forces are withdrawing from the city of Deir ez-Zor and key areas in Latakia, according to Syrian state media, following operations which anti-government activists say have left dozens dead. Convoys of army vehicles were seen leaving Deir ez-Zor after the military cleared the area of "armed terrorist gangs," SANA, the state-run news agency, reported. Journalists on a government-organised trip to the city on Tuesday reported armoured personnel carriers and other military vehicles were leaving, and footage showed pictures of crowds chanting and cheering as the soldiers left.
But only hours later, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that one person was killed when security forces opened fired to disperse an anti-government protest in the city when "hundreds of people" marched in Takaya street.
Residents said tanks were still present at the outskirts of Deir ez-Zor and that troops were raiding houses looking for wanted dissidents. Activists say at least 32 people have died since troops seized control of the city last Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Syria's interior ministry said security forces had completed their operation in the al-Ramel al-Janoubi neighbourhood of the coastal city of Latakia, which had been subjected to a four-day assault that activists say has left at least 36 people dead. Brigadier General Mohammad Hassan al-Ali said al-Ramel al-Janoubi, which houses a Palestinian refugee camp, "is recovering and the citizens are practicing their normal life that was spoiled by the acts of the terrorist groups," SANA reported.
Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify reports from Syria because of media restrictions.

Heavy fire

A resident of the al-Ramel al-Janoubi neighbourhood, who called himself Ismail, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that gunboats and tanks had been used in the assault on Latakia. He said snipers were stationed around the city, shooting at anyone who ventured into the streets.
"What's happening is really severe ... The moment they see anything moving they will shoot it," he said.
Troops raided and destroyed houses in several neighbourhoods while gunfire could be heard, residents said.
"The heavy machine gun fire and bullets were intense in areas of Latakia, Ramel, Masbah al-Shaab and Ain Tamra for more than three hours," said the UK-based SOHR.
The group said soldiers raided the Sqanturi area and made dozens of arrests.
The UN agency that aids Palestinian refugees in Latakia said that thousands of refugees had fled their camp which reportedly came under fire after President Bashar al-Assad's forces began shelling the city.
"A forgotten population has become a disappeared population because we have no idea of the whereabouts of as many as 10,000 refugees who fled Latakia over the last few days,'' said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.
Anti-government protesters meanwhile continued to take to the streets on Tuesday night - including in Homs, Albu Kamal near the Iraqi border, Binnish in the north and in some Damascus suburbs - despite reports of deaths and arrests as the military cracked down on demonstrators.

Violence condemned

A senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation condemned the violence used against Palestinian refugees in Latakia.
"The shelling is taking place using gunships and tanks on houses built from tin, on people who have no place to run to or even a shelter to hide in. This is a crime against humanity." Yasser Abed Rabbo, the PLO secretary general, told the Reuters news agency.
British Foreign Minister, William Hague, meanwhile said in a statement: "The regime's violence continues despite widespread condemnation by the international community. The calls for the violence to stop, including from Syria's neighbours, have not been heeded."
Western diplomats said the UN's top human rights body is likely to hold an urgent meeting next week to discuss the escalating crackdown in Syria, according to the AP news agency.
Syria's key regional ally Iran warned on Tuesday that any Western intervention in the "internal affairs" of Damascus would stoke "public hatred" in the region.
The crackdown in Syria has escalated since the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan, when nightly prayers became the occasion for more protests against Assad and 41 years of Baathist rule.

Syrian troops have opened fire on areas of the port city of Latakia for a fourth day, residents and activists say. They say the assault has so far claimed at least 35 lives. The crackdown on Latakia began on Saturday, a day after mass demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. It has continued despite growing international condemnation of the Syrian government. The protests in Latakia are part of a broader uprising that has developed across the country since March. Areas of the city of 600,000 are dominated by President Assad's minority Alawite community, and the assault has been focused on Sunni-dominated neighbourhoods.
'Used to gunfire' One witness told Reuters news agency that heavy machine-gun fire and explosions on Tuesday had hit the poor neighbourhoods of al-Ramel and al-Shaab - which had also been targeted on Monday.
"We have become used to sleeping and waking up to the sound of gunfire every day," another resident told AFP news agency.
"The shooting usually comes from security forces based on rooftops of the surrounding schools."
Another resident, Tariq, said they had had their electricity cut and landlines severed.
At least 5,000 Palestinian refugees have been forced to flee a camp in al-Ramel amid the crackdown, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
A spokesman for the agency, Chris Gunness, reiterated an appeal to be granted access to the area on Tuesday, telling the BBC that the situation was "extremely worrying".
Witnesses say security forces have used tanks and gunboats to bombard the city. The government has denied attacking from the sea.
Overall, more than 1,800 people have died and more than 30,000 have been detained across the country in the past five months, activists say.
Mr Assad has blamed the unrest on "armed gangs" and "terrorists".
On Tuesday, state news agency Sana said troops were pulling out of the eastern city of Deir al-Zour after "ridding the city of the armed terrorist groups".
Syrian forces launched an operation in the city - the capital of an oil-producing region - earlier this month. 'Sensible' operation One activist told Reuters that snipers remained on rooftops in Deir al-Zour and that the military was storming the homes of opponents of the government in surrounding villages.
Residents said a 16-year-old boy had died after being fired on by security forces after prayers.
"The army conducted a quick and sensible operation in Deir al-Zour in order to restore stability and calm at the request of residents," an army officer told an AFP journalist on a government tour.
As the government campaign to end protests has continued, international criticism of Mr Assad's regime has increased.
On Tuesday, British Foreign Minister William Hague said in a statement that Mr Assad was "fast losing the last shreds of his legitimacy".
"He must stop the violence immediately," he added.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has meanwhile encouraged Syria's neighbours to call for Mr Assad's departure, but indicated that the US was not ready to make the same demand.
"It's not going to be any news if the United States says Assad needs to go," OK, fine. What's next?" Mrs Clinton said, during an appearance with Defence Secretary Leon Panetta.
"If Turkey says it, if King Abdullah (of Saudi Arabia) says it, if other people say it, there's no way the Assad regime can ignore it," she added.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called on Monday for an immediate end to the attack on Latakia - though he did not spell out what consequences there might be if it continued.