More than 2,000 people demonstrated outside one of Damascus's most prominent markets to protest against the beating of a young man by a policeman. Many observers believe this is a very telling incident, reports Bassel Oudat in Damascus At Al-Hariqa market in central Damascus, located near the famous Al-Hamidiya market, at rush hour a traffic policeman verbally insulted a young man looking for a parking spot and demanded that he leave the street. He repeated the insult several times which caused Emad Nassab, the son of a shop owner at the market, to respond with the same insult, upon which the policeman brutally beat the young man with the help of three other policemen who were in the vicinity. Within minutes, more than 2,000 Syrians had gathered -- mostly store owners from the area, shoppers and passersby -- in an unplanned and random fashion. They surrounded the assaulting policeman and began chanting in protest of the beating of the young man by the policeman. All the shops closed, as did those in neighbouring markets, and the crowd began shouting slogans which no Syrian could have imagined or dared speak a few months ago. "The Syrian people will not be humiliated", they began chanting, as well as similar slogans. The gathering became a full blown protest which some witnesses estimated at more than 3,000 people, but some private websites which are monitored by the Syrian Ministry of Information reported they were a few hundred. The demonstrators stayed for three hours on the site and blocked all surrounding streets, bringing traffic in the area to a complete standstill at this strategic location which thousands of people pass through every day. The demonstration took security and police forces which are heavily present in the area by surprise. A senior officer in charge of the area attempted to calm the situation and convince the public to disperse saying that a report will be made about the policeman's assault on the young man. But protesters refused to allow the officer to take the young man to the police station, and shouted, "He won't come back, he won't come back!" if the officer escorted him away. After about one hour senior police officers arrived on the scene, according to eyewitnesses with the rank of brigadier-general but protesters continued their chanting and demanded that the minister of interior himself come to them. Indeed, the minister came two hours later escorted by six brigadier generals and the prosecutor-general. He pledged to the people that he will personally investigate the incident and punish the policemen who caused the problem. The entourage with the minister of interior tried to chant in support of the Syrian president, but the crowd was unresponsive and continued repeating their protestations. To calm things down, the minister escorted the young man and his father in his car and asked the father to address the gathering to convince them that he has been avenged, and that he and his son will go with the minister of their own will. This was the only way to disperse the crowd, and they did within minutes. Within hours, a video of the protest was posted on Syrian and non- Syrian websites, and several opposition websites asserted that the demonstration is strong proof that the Syrian people can rise up in the same way as the Tunisians and Egyptians did, and do not fear being suppressed if they protest. This spontaneous demonstration in the centre of Damascus and the way the authorities dealt with it proved that there is deep tension both within Syrian society and the security apparatus as well. On the level of society, the Syrians were influenced by the popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt which have created a conviction across the Arab world that popular pressure could bring about regime change and establish democratic regimes, or force incumbent rulers to implement reforms. Nonetheless, Syria's official media until today still insists that the people in Tunisia and Egypt revolted against the Camp David peace agreement and its ramifications, and not to call for democracy, freedoms, fighting corruption, unemployment, better living conditions and for other social and economic demands. Large sectors of Syrian youth suffer from high unemployment rates, which some reports estimate at 30 per cent of employable youth, and low incomes where the minimum wage is $150 per month. Meanwhile, one third of Syrians live below the poverty line according to official statistics, and prices are very high. According to some reports, the Syrian citizen needs his income multiplied many times in order to be able to live without debt. At the same time, the people follow news about administrative and financial corruption every day in the Syrian media -- including state-owned outlets -- which sometimes uncover cases of embezzlement of tens of millions of dollars of public funds. These are perhaps the reasons for tension and strain in Syrian society. At the same time, the anxiety of the security forces was evident in how they dealt with the incident and the hasty arrival of the minister of interior in person on the street to end the crisis. One day after the incident, the minister of interior issued firm directives to security and police forces to deal with the people gently and not to agitate them under any circumstances. The semi-official media reported that the minister has ordered the incarceration and prosecution of the policemen involved in the altercation. Meanwhile, the traffic police have reduced their presence on streets which do not require their presence. While security forces dealt with Al-Hariqa protest with caution, they did not change their conduct much. Syrian human rights activists revealed that the security apparatus later arrested Firas Al-Sirwan and took him to an unknown location because he participated in the demonstration and chanted anti-regime slogans. Syria is under emergency law since 1963 which bans protests and assembly, and allows security forces to detain any citizen without charge. In its latest report, Human Rights Watch criticised the continued use of the emergency law in Syria. There is also a law which prohibits the prosecution of security officers for violations in the line of duty unless their superior agrees to the prosecution. Many Syrians criticised Al-Jazeera news channel because it did not cover Al-Hariqa protest, especially that the channel has waged a media war while covering demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Syrian writers asserted that the channel's credibility was badly damaged because it ignored the Syrian protest. The Al-Hariqa incident encouraged some Syrians to create a Facebook page titled "The Syrian Anti-Regime Revolution" which had some 25,000 members as of this week. It called for protests across Syria at a time and date which will be announced within days. The creators of the page stated that "they don't belong to any political entity" and that they are "merely human rights activists in Syria and Europe". They stated that the final time and date of a demonstration being planned are "still under close deliberation" and that it would probably be in March. It is believed that these activists reside outside Syria. An unidentified group on Facebook had called for widespread protests in Syria on 4 February in opposition to "dictatorship, corruption and despotism", but no demonstrations were reported on that day and no one in the opposition responded to the call. The Syrian government took a number of steps after the events in Tunisia and Egypt, including reducing levies on some basic staple foods such as rice, tea, oil and baby formula, as well as giving civil servants a $10 bonus for fuel. It also established a fund to assist very poor families by giving them a $10 to $70 in financial aid. Many observers described these measures as a means of pre-empting possible protests. Syrians are intently observing the developments and changes taking place in Arab countries. No doubt the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, followed by Libya, have roused everyone whether people or regimes and demonstrated that tension, oppression and humiliation could result in revolt. They have also encouraged the youth on Facebook and YouTube to copy their peers in Tunisia and Egypt, and made it clear that genuine reform is essential.
