Authorities backed Damascus riots, say protesters

[Taxloss]

Syrian protesters who burnt and looted the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus at the weekend were encouraged to organise by the Syrian authorities, and received text messages from Islamic study centres urging them to gather, according to participants in the riot.

"The sheikhs told us to send five text messages to every true Muslim we knew urging them to participate," said a student from the conservative Abu Nour Islamic Institute in Damascus, who wished to remain anonymous. "The authorities gave a green light for us to organise the gathering in public and to participate in it."

The Middle East has for months been a tinderbox of pent-up anti-Western anger, and the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed was the spark that lit the fuse. But the fury displayed by crowds in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq may also have been exploited by some Muslim countries to settle scores with Western powers. Syria and Iran face growing pressure from the US and Europe on the issues of Iraq and on Tehran's nuclear programme. And Egypt, one of the first to publicly criticise the cartoons, has been critical of the Danish government for funding critics of human rights abuses.

"This is an organised attempt to take advantage of Muslim anger for purposes that do not serve the interests of Muslims and Lebanon, but those of others beyond the border," Lebanese Social Affairs Minister Nayla Mouawad, a Christian, said yesterday after riots in Beirut.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article343457.ece

[Cobalt Violet]

1. What a shocker!

:sarcasm: :hide:

[bemildred]

2. I must say I'm taken aback. A government lie and foment violence?

Who knew that such things went on?

[Catrina]

3. I like your tagline ~ unfortunately this nation has not been speaking

'peace' to other nations. Why is anyone surprised that the language and acts of war against Muslims have finally produced some reaction?

War is barbaric ~ especially when it is unprovoded and based on lies.
Torture is barbaric ~

I wonder why the Muslim world is getting a little upset?

'No region in the world more deserves to be turned into a cauldron' ~ Michael Ledeen, arch neocon and advisor to 'peace-loving and democracy spreading' George Bush, on foreign policy which led to the barbaric war in Iraq ~ (his words are paraphrased, I believe he added 'so let's get started' or words to that effect. And he wasn't just talking or demonstrating, or thinking of burning down embassies. Tens of thousands of deaths later, while the world did nothing to stop it, he's forging ahead with his plan to turn the ME into a 'cauldron'.

I am surprised that there hasn't been a reaction sooner from the Muslim world and in fact, from decent Western nations against the PNAC plans for forever war against Muslim oil producing countries!

[Taxloss]

5. Good question: why haven't we seen this earlier?

Why didn't we see these scenes over Iraq, or Abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo?

Answer: despite the fact that anger over those abuses was far greater, there was no orchestrated effort to foment street violence, as there has been in this case. This entire controversy has been manufactured by extremists with the tacit support of some Arab regimes. This is not the straw that broke the camel's back. It is a carefully choreographed spectacle designed to intimidate Europe.

[Tempest]

4. It appears Syria is more democratic than the U.S.

"The authorities gave a green light for us to organise the gathering in public and to participate in it."


Unlike here in America where the authorities crackdown on legal protests.

[Taxloss]

7. Well, I don't think anyone would stop you organise a pro-Bush rally.

Syria allows free speech it the regime like what the speech says. Its human rights record is one of the worst in the world. "More democratic" ... for all the failings of the USA, that's an absurd and offensive thing to say.

[Tempest]

11. Anti-government protests in Syria not unheard of

They're rare, but not unheard of.

There was one in April of last year which was allowed and there was no crackdown.


As far as "an absurb and offensive thing to say", until you've been assaulted and arrested for no reason by police in a peaceful anti-war protest, you have no right to make such a claim.

[Taxloss]

12. It is certainly absurd to say that Syria is more democratic than the USA.

Maybe it isn't directly offensive to me, but it is offensive to the efforts of those NGOs struggling to free political prisoners there, and I am a donor to them. Syria is not a democracy. Syrians enjoy considerably less freedom than you do. Its human rights record is among the worst in the world. But then your idea that I have to be assaulted before I can state these things demonstrates that you have a very odd idea of what constitutes freedom.

[kineneb]

6. ME has discovered "Rent-a-Mob"

X:Hello, I would like an excuse for a riot. What do you have available?
Y:Lemme see. Got these cartoons in a conservative Danish newspaper. Will that do?
X:Sure.
Y:I will make sure that our finest employees will be made available. Thank you for calling the Islamic Division of "Rent-a-Mob." We pleased to serve you.

[Harper_is_Bush]

8. Where does it say in the story that the authorities backed "riots"?

This is a poorly written story.

They have one anonymous student telling them that

"The sheikhs told us to send five text messages to every true Muslim we knew urging them to participate"

and that authorities

"gave a green light for us to organise the gathering in public and to participate in it."

And from that the title becomes "authorities backed Damascus riots"?

bizarre.

[Taxloss]

9. This details the organisation involved in Beirut:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,1703506,00.html

These riots are well-orchestrated.

[Mizmoon]

10. They showed up

If I got an invitation to burn down the Syrian Embassy, or any other place on earth for that matter, I would call the FBI.