WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, reported on Tuesday that 14 people were shot during a protest at Yarmouk refugee camp, a Palestinian refugee camp near the city of Damascus in Syria, on Monday. Fighters from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command had a dispute with mourners at Sunday’s funerals for Palestinian protestors who were killed at the border between Syria and the Golan Heights. Golan Heights spans over the border of Syria and Israel and is currently being controlled by the United Nations peace keeping forces.
The Monday shootings occurred after the mourners accused the organization of sacrificing the lives of Palestinians by encouraging people to protest at the Golan Heights. The protest was between those who support the government of Syria and those who oppose it and instead seek to expand democratic rights. The mourners had begun their march after the burial of the seven people killed during the border protest. 25 year old Mohamed Rashdan, a shoekeeper at a store near the site of protest, said the protestors began to throw stones at the organization headquarters. The security men of the building responded violently by shooting at the crowd of young protestors.
“They were all Palestinians – no Syrian security men shot at us,” Mr. Rashdan said. “That made us so angry.” Yarmouk refugee camp residents accused the organization of organizing the border protest “to help Syria run away from its local crisis.” According to Mr. Rashdan, that was why Syrians were so angry at the killing of their “brothers and sons.”
Israel and the United States presumed that the Syrian government organized, or at least refused to try to prevent, the border protest in order to turn away attention from its violent response to the antigovernment uprising in Syria. However, according to Washington State Department spokesman Mark Toner, “It’s clear that such behavior will not distract international attention from the Syrian governments’ condemnable behavior on its own citizens.” Syrian antigovernment protests were influenced by similar protests in countries around Syria, including Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.
SOURCES
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기