Syria, Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Just Another Protest Friday?
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 7:00 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran Protest in Stadium Street in Homs, Syria last night (see 0545 GMT)
Also see today's video post - Latest Syria Videos: Deir Ezzor to Damascus & Beyond
1618 GMT: In the northern town of Jabal al-Zaweh, Idleb Province, the city was once the scene of 100,000 protesters, or more, every Friday. Today there are only 2,000 protesters in the streets. An Al Jazeera contact in the city explains:
“Since the military started their operations in the area and set up check points and started arresting people their presence has discouraged people from participating,” he said. “We are almost under siege and people find it difficult to get enough food on a daily basis.”
However, protests in the rest of Syria have been large and widespread. 10,000 people have taken to the streets of Binnesh, near Idleb, the Guardian is calling the day one of the biggest since the beginning of Arab Spring, Syrian activists are claiming that more than 1 million protesters took to the streets today, and we have already posted more than a dozen videos from Syria.
1553 GMT: Ahram News has posted their own liveblog from Tahrir Square. The protests across Egypt are once again on the rise, as frustration is growing at the Prime Minister and the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces. While protests have been limited in the months after the ouster of Mubarak, in recent weeks they have been larger in scale and more widespread.
The Guardian's Jack Shenker has this assessment:
In Egypt thousands of demonstrators descended on public squares around the country to offer a 'Friday of Final Warning' to the ruling military junta, amid fears that the revolution which toppled Hosni Mubarak is now being betrayed by conservative forces.Rallies and hunger strikes were reported from Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast all the way down to Luxor in the south and Suez in the east, with the main focus once again on Cairo's Tahrir Square where a large sit-in is now over a week old and shows no sign of ending.