SYRIA: Security forces mobilize ahead of planned protests.
Syria deployed police officers, soldiers and military vehicles in two of the country’s three largest cities Thursday ahead of a call for nationwide protests that will test the popular reception of reforms decreed by President Bashar Assad as well as the momentum that organizers have sought to bring to a five-week uprising.
Residents described a mobilization in the capital, Damascus, and, in more pronounced fashion, in the restive city of Homs, where a government crackdown this week dispersed one of the largest gatherings since demonstrations began last month. For days, organizers have looked to today as a potential show of strength for a movement that has yet to build the critical mass reached in Egypt and Tunisia.
The government has maintained that the uprising is led by militant Islamists. But so far, the government has sought to hew to a policy of crackdown with compromise. On Thursday, Assad signed decrees that repealed harsh emergency rule, in place since 1963, abolished draconian security courts and granted citizens the right to protest peacefully, though they still need government permission to gather. The orders had already been handed down to his government Tuesday, making his endorsement a formality; its timing seemed aimed in part at blunting today’s protests.
YEMEN: President ponders proposed deal to solve crisis.
The secretary-general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council traveled to the Yemeni capital, Sana, on Thursday to offer the embattled president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, a deal to solve Yemen’s political crisis. A Yemeni government statement promised an official response within 24 hours.
The arrangement calls for the president to hand over power immediately and step down in 30 days, and it sets up presidential elections 60 days later, a Yemeni official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. It also calls for an immediate end to protests.
EGYPT: Court orders Mubarak name stripped from public sites.
An Egyptian court on Thursday ordered the names of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his wife, Suzanne, removed from all public facilities and institutions, the latest step in dismantling the legacy of the former leader’s 29 years in power.
Early in his rule, Mubarak said that out of modesty he didn’t want his name put on public buildings, but there are now hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of schools, streets, squares and libraries that bear the name of the former leader or his wife — as well as a major subway station in central Cairo.
Mubarak, who will be 83 next month, remains in detention under guard at a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Mubarak was admitted last week for an irregular heartbeat. Unconfirmed media reports said he also was suffering from depression.
BAHRAIN: Repression of middle class threatens stability.
A government crackdown on the Shiite- dominated political opposition is reaching deep into Bahrain’s middle-class professions, according to local political leaders and human- rights activists, potentially threatening the country’s long-term stability.
Doctors, businessmen, engineers, academics, teachers and journalists have all been targeted for questioning and detention, observers say, with hundreds arrested and hundreds more fired.
The repression extends beyond political leaders and activists associated with the largely Shiite-led demonstrations that began Feb. 14. Family members and associates of people detained say that the government is targeting Shiites indiscriminately, regardless of their political activity, and with a particular focus on doctors and educators.
“It is retribution,” said one prominent opposition figure, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of arrest. “But it is also an ethnic cleansing of top professions.”
A government spokeswoman denied claims of political retribution.
“Any arrests were done because they weren’t following their rightful duties,” said Luma Bashmi of Bahrain’s Information Affairs Authority.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Elected board of lawyers group purged.
Authorities have replaced the elected board of the lawyers association with state-appointed substitutes as part of a crackdown on reform movements in the oil-rich gulf nation.
The decision appears linked to efforts to silence calls for democratic reforms in the gulf federation, where nearly all political activity is banned. Four independent activists have been detained after signing a petition calling for an elected parliament.
Denver Post wire services
