As our colleague Anthony Shadid reports, Syrians took to the streets on Friday in Homs and Hama, both in central Syria, as well as in the towns of Baniyas and Latakia along the Mediterranean coast. Government security forces responded with gunfire, killing at least 17 people, human rights activists said.
Although independent reporting inside Syria is still blocked by the government, a video posted online by Syrian activists appears to offer glimpses of Friday’s protests and clashes.
Writing on Twitter, Wissam Tarif, a Syrian human rights activist, said that this this video shows “Security forces in uniform shooting at peaceful protesters in Hama today.”
Hama was the scene of brutal violence in 1982, when the Syrian government killed at least 10,000 people to put down an uprising.
Two more clips, uploaded to the same YouTube channel, seem to show the authorities using teargas and water to fend off protesters in Hama.
This clip, uploaded to the Syrian Shaam News YouTube channel, is also said to show protesters confronting the security forces on the streets of Hama on Friday:
A Syrian activist who writes on Twitter as Anonymous Syria wrote that this video shows “live ammunition used against unarmed protesters” in Bou Kamal, near Syria’s eastern border with Iraq:
According to Mr. Tarif, this video shows protesters in Damascus calling President Bashar al-Assad “a coward” for not using the armed forces to recapture the Golan Heights, Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967:
Despite the restrictions on independent reporting in Syria, some of the protesters appear to be aware that video of their demonstrations is being broadcast internationally. An activist who writes as Syrian Jasmine on Twitter points out that in this video, said to have been filmed in Homs on Friday, a protester holds a banner thanking Anderson Cooper of CNN for his coverage of their uprising:
According to the activist Ugarit News channel on YouTube, this video, shows women marching through the streets of Rastan, outside Homs on Friday:
While large protests have still not gripped Damascus, the Syrian capital, this footage appears to show that protesters marched in Kiswah, a town outside the city, on Friday: