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SYRIA: More killings reported; artists and intellectuals arrested

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Syrian government troops don’t appear to be anywhere near halting the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

Only days after a government-sponsored ‘national dialogue’ meeting on reform in Damascus, Syrian security forces killed at least eight people over the course of 24 hours on Wednesday and Thursday and arrested scores, including artists, actors and writers, according to activist accounts.

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The Local Coordination Committees in Syria, a Syrian activist network tracking anti-regime protests, said seven people were killed Wednesday in the nation’s northwestern province of Idlib as Syrian army troops carried out military operations there, while another man was shot dead Thursday in the eastern city of Dair Alzour near the Iraqi border during a protest.

LCCSyria said 7,000 people took to the streets in anti-government rallies in Dair Alzour on Thursday and that shop owners had gone on a general strike in solidarity with the demonstrators.

Meanwhile, the Damascus district of Medan became the scene of violence and chaos on Wednesday night when security forces and pro-regime elements cracked down on a pro-democracy protest by Syrian intellectuals, artists, and actors, arresting several rallygoers, according to eyewitnesses and activist reports.

According to a news alert posted on the website of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based group, Syrian security forces arrested 30 of the intellectuals who had signed up for the protest.

Amateur video footage uploaded to the Internet and purportedly filmed at the demonstration showed a prominent presence of security and riot police on the scene. Protesters sang Syria’s national anthem, then marched down a street while shouting ‘the Syrian people is one -- one, one, one.’

It didn’t take long, however, before security forces intervened and violence erupted.

One eyewitness told The Times that security forces and pro-regime thugs known as Shabiha beat both women and men, some of whom cried out ‘peaceful, peaceful.’

According to LCCSyria, those arrested at the rally include Syrian actress Mai Skaf, the twin movie actors Mohammad and Ahmad Malas, authors Yam Mashhadi and Rima Flaihan, and actor Nidal Hassan.

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News of the crackdown on the artists’ and intellectuals’ demonstration in Damascus soon spread across the country, prompting protesters in some places to take to the streets in solidarity rallies with those arrested.

‘Mai and Rima: you’re the apple of our eyes, each one of you worth a hundred,’ demonstrators in the southern city of Dara reportedly chanted in reference to the arrested actress and author. They also waved signs saying ‘Whoever arrests intellect arrests the world’ and ‘Down with the regime of ignorance.’

Several pleas for the release of the detained Syrian intellectuals appeared Thursday on Facebook.

Syrian activists, meanwhile, called for nationwide general strikes Thursday and have dubbed Friday’s expected nationwide rallies ‘Friday of detainees of freedom.’

‘For freedom for the detainees, for the dignity of the free,’ read a slogan for the scheduled protests on a banner posted on the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page -- a driving force behind demonstrations against Syrian ruler Bashar Assad.

--Alexandra Sandels in Beirut

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Top video: Anti-regime protesters at a demonstration in Damascus on Wednesday, a rally organized by and attended by Syrian artists and intellectuals. Credit: YouTube. Lower video: Demonstrators sing the national anthem at the protest amid tight security. Credit: YouTube

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