Syrian Regime Troops Fire on Fleeing Refugees

A Syrian woman and her child, fleeing the violence in Syria, cross by foot into the Lebanese border village of Wadi Khaled, northern Lebanon near the Lebanese-Syrian border, July 19, 2011 (Reuters Pictures via Daylife)

The Dailystar reports:

Syrian forces opened fire on refugees fleeing into Lebanon early Saturday morning, a security source told the Daily Star.

The source said that around 30 families entered Lebanon between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. through the unofficial border crossing at Lebanese border town of Kneisseh in the Wadi Khaled area in the north. The gunfire lasted about 20 minutes. 

Refugees began fleeing into Lebanon in large numbers two months ago following a crackdown on anti-government demonstrators in Syrian frontier towns. 

Since then, Syrian troops have tightened security along the Lebanese borders, preventing people from fleeing to Lebanon. However, many Syrians continue to cross into Lebanon through, often in the middle of the night. Some have been killed or wounded in the process. 

It is not known how many Syrian refugees have fled into Lebanon since the beginning of the uprising. There are 2,000 registered Syrian refugees in the country, according to the UNHCR, but it is believed the real numbers are significantly higher. 

Syria's four-month-long popular uprising, its largest since Hafez Assad took power 40 years ago, has claimed the lives of more than 1,400, say activists. Friday saw the largest show of demonstrators to date, with more than 1.5 million anti-government demonstrators taking to the streets across the country.

Yalla Irhal Ya Bashar!

Description:

Response from the streets of Hama to Bashar's speech, with additional music & translation added by the Creative Syrian Revolution. 

The singer "Ibrahim Qashoush" was reported to be killed in Hama on 3 July 2011 by regime mercenaries, they cut his throat to try to stop his chant spreading. Please spread this to prove them wrong and show their violence will never defeat us. Additional Music & Translation added by the Creative Syrian Revolution - http://www.facebook.com/CreativeSyrian

Raw video below:

UN Accuses Eritrea of Planning Terror Attack

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, given that the UN-backed Hariri assassination investigation and prosecution before the STL is reportedly set to accuse top members of the Syrian regime of involvement in the operation, along with ensuing terror attacks. BBCNews reports:

A United Nations report accuses Eritrea of planning a car bomb attack at an African Union summit in Ethiopia.

The UN Monitoring Group report on Somalia and Eritrea says the aim was to disrupt the summit in Addis Ababa last January.

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The report states that Asmara's spies are active in Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya and Somalia, posing a threat to regional peace and security.

The UN interprets the plot as representing a shift in tactics by the Eritrean intelligence services.

"Whereas Eritrean support to foreign armed opposition groups has in the past been limited to conventional military operations, the plot to disrupt the African Union summit in Addis Ababa in January 2011, which envisaged mass casualty attacks against civilian targets and the strategic use of explosives to create a climate of fear, represents a qualitative shift in Eritrean tactics," said the report.

It outlines the details of the plan: to attack the AU headquarters with a car bomb as African leaders took breaks, to blow up Africa's largest market to "kill many people", and attack the area between the prime minister's office and the Sheraton Hotel, where most heads of state stay during AU summits.

Yalla Underground: Beirut Trailer

Women's Rights in Lebanon

Amnesty International: If Someone's Watching ...

A New Way to View the Arabic Alphabet

Via Salon:

As a student at Central Saint Martins in London, Rana Abou Rjeily devised the font family Mirsaal, which comprises Arabic and Latin alphabets that work together in typographic harmony. Growing up in Lebanon speaking Arabic, French and English, she found Arabic, her first language, the hardest of the three to learn. In her design classes in London, her classmates were drawn to the calligraphic aesthetics of written Arabic, but they were not able to read the script; they just admired the forms.

Abou Rjeily decided to continue the established tradition of "simplifying" Arabic in order to make it more accessible to nonnative speakers. Back in 1947, the Lebanese architect and typographer Nasri Khattar created Unified Arabic, a 32-character detached alphabet that, according to Abou Rjeily, "was meant to ease the learning and writing of the scripts by reducing the number of shapes letters could assume."

In the 1990s, Mourad Boutros (a leader in the field of Arabic typography since the 1960s, and someone else I have worked with on two books) designed Basic Arabic, "a compromise between Khattar's radical proposal to abandon cursive script and the idea of designing a typographic script with only one shape per letter that would not be joined together when printed."

In Cultural Connectives, Abou Rjeily presents Mirsaal, a contemporary take on Khattar and Boutros' creation of detached Arabic scripts for the benefit of learning and being able to achieve typographic balance between the two alphabets. Relying on the fundamental aspects of both the Arabic and Latin alphabets, Abou Rjeily showcases the versatility of Mirsaal by making clear how different the two alphabets are and how she has fused elements of both to design two attractive and incredibly useful fonts.

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An Assad Father's Day

Libyan Truck- Welded Tank Turret

Would a Victorious Syrian People Hand Bashar Assad & Cronies to the STL?

 

One of the first videos of Syria's Arab Spring. The regime's increasing brutality led to increasing numbers in the streets demanding freedom, rights and dignity.

Maybe its wrong to engage in such fanciful musings on the [near?] future while innocent civilians are today being crushed by tanks and tortured in cellars, but one question preoccupied me this morning.

The Question: Throughout the developments in Lebanon of the past 6 years, detractors of the STL have used the argument that even if the STL were to indict [let alone find guilty] top members of the Syrian regime, no organisation, government or body was going to go into Syria, catch them, and deliver them to the Hague for trial and/or imprisonment.  As the Arab Spring has swept through Syria, one possible body for the deliverance of those called to appear in the Hague has arisen, the Syrian people themselves. Would a victorious people's revolution in Syria hand over the top echelon of the Assad regime for prosecution in an international court for the murder and assassination of various Lebanese figures & personalities (including Rafic Hariri, of course) if it were possible? Or, given that the Syrian people have revolted against repression under the banner of dignity, would they insist that any prosecution of the Assad regime address first and foremost that regime's crimes against humanity perpetrated on the Syrian people? Their dignity and rights lend themselves the latter proposal, while the practicality of having a fully functional court and proceedings lend themselves to the former.  Both of the propositions are presume a lot ... a lot a lot ... but why not, who would've thought we'd be here six months ago?