By Ian Birrell
Last updated at 1:09 AM on 17th April 2011
Mail Online- London
....Before talking to me, one woman put her mobile phone in her hand¬bag then zipped it up in case it was bugged by security forces. Another person said he placed his by the television with the volume turned up when discussing ‘the situation’ at home. A third only used news websites in internet cafes, and never for more than ten minutes, to avoid detection.
Several people inadvertently dropped their voices to a whisper whenever they mentioned their president by name, even in their own homes.
‘I’ve felt scared all my life,’ said one young woman. ‘My father told me from a very early age to remember that walls have ears. Isn’t it terrible children must be told such things?’
There is good cause for such caution. These smart, savvy people all knew others who had been jailed or beaten in recent weeks.
‘A couple of my friends were arrested,’ said one.
‘The wife was beaten up then released. Now her mother wants her to leave the country and go to Dubai, but she won’t leave until her husband is released.’
Another told of a friend last seen covered in blood as he was dragged off by security forces during a protest.
‘His mother is frantic – she just wants to know if he’s alive after two weeks of hearing nothing.’
Few venture out late in a city renowned for its bustling nightlife, given the oppressive mood and prowling gangs of secret police.
‘I looked at one list of arrests and there were seven people taken in for having a conversation in a cafe,’ said one person.
‘This is why we stay in with our families or close friends.’
So what is going on in a nation for so long seen as an island of stability? Just as in Tunisia, when the self-immolation of a fruit seller sparked a fire that swept North Africa, it all began in unexpected circumstances in a most unlikely place.
On March 6, 15 teenagers were arrested for scrawling graffiti in Deraa, a nondescript farming town near the Jordanian border. They had written on a wall, ‘The people want the regime to fall’ – the mantra of the Arab spring. Their parents, accompanied by a local religious leader, went to the police to plead for their release, but were told to forget about their children.
‘Go away and have some more’ was the advice.
....When some of the arrested teenagers were freed they had been tortured, with faces smashed up, burns on their bodies and fingernails pulled out.
Eight days ago, security forces killed at least 28 demonstrators in Deraa and two other cities, the highest death toll yet on a single day. Deraa is sealed off, but driving nearby the following day I saw army trucks heading towards it laden with coils of razor wire.
One activist said local elders were still trying to keep things calm, but if any of the missing teenagers turned up dead ‘the guns will come out’. FULL STORY
Doesn't sound much different than what CPS does to our kids here. Does it?
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