Protesters wave their national flag during a pro-democracy rally in Hama, Syria At least 20 people were killed in Syria on Friday, most of them in the restive city of Homs, as Human Rights Watch accused the regime of crimes against humanity.The Arab League, meanwhile , held a ministerial meeting to discuss the Syria crisis which, according to the United Nations, has claimed more than 3,500 lives since protests against President Bashar al-Assad erupted in mid-March.
Five people were killed in Homs, including a defecting soldier and a 63-year-old man, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received in Nicosia.
The deaths in Homs came amid mass anti-regime rallies demanding the Arab League suspend Syria's membership in the pan-Arab body to sanction its brutal, eight-month crackdown on dissent.
Security forces broke up demonstrations in Al-Malaab, a main thoroughfare in Homs, but rallies relocated and mushroomed, engulfing eight neighbourhoods, including Al-Bayada, Al-Ghuta and Baba Amr, the Observatory said.
In the northwestern province of Idlib, near Turkey, "security forces shot dead a man in the town of Ariha," where demonstrations erupted after the weekly Muslim midday prayers.
The Observatory also reported "mass protests" in Idlib's Sheikhun in the wake of a "retreat by security forces from government buildings following violent clashes."
And "security forces unleashed heavy gunfire to disperse demonstrations," in the eastern oil hub of Deir Ezzor.
In Damascus, security forces deployed on the streets of Barzeh and posted snipers on rooftops, after a wave of arrests and deadly violence shook the capital's neighbourhood.
In the town of Busret al-Sham, in Daraa province, cradle of the revolt, "security forces shot dead one person," the Observatory said.
Friday prayers have become a lightning rod for demonstrations in Syria, which each week adopt a new theme and this week called for the Arab League to suspend Syria's membership.
The League, under international pressure to act after Syria failed to honour a peace plan and instead stepped up its brutal protest crackdown, held talks ahead of a meeting on Saturday to discuss the crisis.
Syria's envoy to the Arab League, Yussef Ahmad, presented early Friday a memorandum in which Damascus expressed its willingness to receive a pan-Arab delegation.
"This will help assess Damascus's commitment to the (Arab) plan and to unveil motives behind certain external and internal parties working for the failure of the Arab blueprint," the official SANA news agency said.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a report accused Syrian government forces of "crimes against humanity" based on the systematic nature of abuses against civilians.
It said protesters were unarmed in most clashes, but that defectors from the security forces had intervened when the demonstrators came under fire from regime troops and militiamen.
Based on the accounts of 110 victims and witnesses, HRW said "violations by the Syrian security forces killed at least 587 civilians" in the central city of Homs and its province between mid-April and the end of August.
In their latest assault on the flashpoint city, at least another 104 people have been killed since November 2 when the regime agreed to the Arab League initiative to end the violence.
"Homs is a microcosm of the Syrian government’s brutality," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director.
"The Arab League needs to tell President Assad that violating their agreement has consequences, and that it now supports Security Council action to end the carnage," she said.
Under the Arab peace plan, Damascus would release those detained for protesting and withdraw military forces from towns and cities. It says it has already released more than 500.
Elsewhere, a Lebanese man had a leg blown off on Friday after stepping on a mine planted hours earlier by Syrian troops along Lebanon's northern border, local and hospital officials said.