Síria: muitos milhares de detidos

Syrian opposition activists have called for nationwide protests in support of the thousands of people detained by the government in the 10-month uprising.

The UN said last month that more than 14,000 people were in detention, but human rights activists believe as many as 40,000 people are being held.

The protests are expected a day after an Arab League observer mission in Syria completed its month-long mission.

Earlier, state media confirmed an army brigadier had been killed in Hama.

The Sana news agency reported that Brig Adel al-Mustafa and two other members of the security forces died when a "terrorist group" opened fire on a police patrol in the city's al-Jarajma district on Thursday.

An activist group, the Local Co-ordination Committees, had earlier said that Mustafa was a brigadier in the powerful Military Intelligence security agency, and that he was killed by soldiers who had defected and refused his orders to shoot at civilians in the Bab Qibli area of Hama.

The LCC also said 26 people had been killed by security forces across the country on Thursday.

Five army roadblocks check traffic coming into Deraa on the main road from Damascus. Inside the town there are more roadblocks, sand-bagged military positions and plenty of men, in and out of uniform, carrying guns for the regime of President Bashar al Assad.

"Come and talk to us. We're under occupation here," shouted some young men near the Omari mosque, where the first protests of the Syrian uprising started in March last year. They said 18 people in their street had been killed by the regime's forces.

The Governor of Deraa, Mohammed Khaled Hannous, denied that Deraa was a town under occupation. Like President Assad, he blamed a foreign conspiracy, orchestrated by the US, UK, Israel and France.

I asked one man what he thought about the president.

"I won't comment," he said, eyeing the regime security men who had accompanied journalists into Deraa, "because I'd have to tell a lie."

Amnesty

A banner posted on the Facebook page, Syrian Revolution 2011, urged Syrians to take to the streets on Friday to "rally in support of the revolution's prisoner".

In December, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said tens of thousands of people had been arrested and more than 14,000 were reported to be in detention as a result of the crackdown.

But the campaign group Avaaz recently said more than 37,000 were being held, and that a total of 69,000 had been detained since March.

The Syrian government has said it has freed hundreds of detainees in the last month, and on Sunday it announced the latest of several amnesties for "crimes" committed during the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.