Activists Urge Arab League to Freeze Syria Membership
Syrian activists on Sunday urged the Arab League to freeze the country's membership in the 22-member organization over the deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
The Syrian Revolution 2011, one of the motors of the dissent, made the appeal after almost 100 people died Friday and Saturday in the bloodiest two days of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime.
"Assad's militias have been killing us for eight months. They arrest us and crush us... And you, Arabs, who love rhetoric, what are you doing," the group said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
The activists also called for fresh protests nationwide on Sunday under the banner "freeze the membership" of Syria in the Arab League.
"Stop your support for the assassins," it told the pan-Arab body.
An Arab League ministerial committee was due to hold talks Sunday in Qatar with Syrian officials in a bid to try to end the violence which has claimed thousands of lives, after a meeting Wednesday in Damascus with Assad.
According to U.N. estimates more than 3,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters since the dissent movement unfurled in mid-March.
The Arab League has been trying to spur talks between Syria and the opposition and a statement said the Qatar talks were aimed at reaching "serious results and an exit to the Syrian crisis." it said.
Meanwhile a Kuwaiti newspaper al-Qabas said Arab foreign ministers have warned Syrian leaders during Wednesday's meeting of the risk of international intervention in Syria unless he stops the violence and launches reforms.
But Assad told Britain's Sunday Telegraph than any Western intervention would cause an "earthquake" inflaming the region.
Source: Agence France Presse
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