Damascus
Syrian police arrested dozens of protesters this week and briefly detained a U.S. diplomat who had been observing their rare demonstration. Political activity is rigidly controlled in Syria, a dictatorship that has been under “emergency rule” by the Baath Party for four decades. Thousands of political dissidents have been imprisoned and tortured. The protest this week was a simple gathering of a few dozen reform advocates, vastly outnumbered by police. When the demonstrators tried to unfurl a paper banner that said “Freedom for Prisoners of Conscience,” they were all arrested—though everyone was released the same day.
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