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SYRIA: Video shows protests throughout the country after Friday prayers

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Braving chilly winds, gray skies and President Bashar Assad’s security forces, protesters poured into the streets of Syria on Friday, calling for freedom, an end to a military siege on Syrian cities and, in some cases, the downfall of the Assad regime, according to amateur video posted to the Internet.

Several protests were reported to have broken out around mosques in and near the capital, Damascus. In the clip below, which is said to have been filmed near a mosque in the Damascus district of Zahirah on Friday, people are seen running down a street, some covering their faces with scarves and clothing in an apparent attempt to deal with tear gas.

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Anti-government demonstrations were also reported to be underway in the Sunni strongholds of Hama and Homs in the western part of the country. The video below claims to depict a demonstration in the Homs neighborhood of Bab Amro on Friday. It shows crowds in a street holding a giant Syrian flag while shouting ‘the people want the downfall of the regime’ and jumping up and down, some raising clenched fists into the air. Activist accounts reported gunfire directed at demonstrators in Homs’ Bab Idrib district.

Friday’s demonstrations were billed by some activists as the ‘Friday for the free,’ and protesters around the country were said to be chanting for freedom, an end to a military siege on Syrian cities and solidarity with besieged Syrian communities, among other slogans. Below, a clip said to have been filmed in the ethnic Kurdish city of Qamishli in the country’s far northeast on Friday shows a large rally in which demonstrators are chanting in solidarity with the protest-stricken town Dara in southern Syria.

Below, another video said to have been filmed at a demonstration in the town of Amouda near Qamishli on Friday.

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-- Alexandra Sandels in Beirut

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