Security forces on Monday rounded up hundreds of pro-democracy sympathisers, including prominent human rights campaigner Diana Jawabra for the second time during Syria's uprising, witnesses said. The arrests came in the wake of the shelling of Deraa, cradle of the unrest, by a force led by President Bashar al-Assad's feared brother Maher.
-- Protests in Homs after Deraa falls to tank siege
"I am Dana Jawabra from Deraa," Jawabra shouted as she was forced into a white Kia secret police car outside her home in the Mezza West District of Damascus. The 39-year-old engineer was arrested on March 16 while taking part in a silent protest in Damascus to demand the release of thousands of political prisoners in Syria.
Among them were 15 schoolchildren who had been detained in Deraa for writing freedom slogans on walls, inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. The arrests of Jawabra and others were a major cause of the eruption of pro-democracy demonstrations in the southern city.
She was released on March 27 as Preident Bashar al-Assad made vague promises for reform that failed to stop mass demonstrations from spreading to other parts across Syria. In the old quarter of Deraa, shelled and machine-gunned into submission on Saturday, security forces forced their way into houses on Sunday and took away many men under 40, witnesses told Reuters by telephone.
At least 560 civilians have been killed by Assad's security forces since the Deraa uprising erupted on March 18, human rights groups say. The government, condemned by the West for their repression of unrest, has blamed the violence on "armed terrorist groups". The country of 20 million people has been under authoritarian Baath Party rule since 1963.
Security police dispersed an all-women protest at Arnos square in Damascus on Monday. Another all-women demonstration took place in Kharbet Ghazal village, 14 km (eight miles) east of Deraa. In the central city of Homs, thousands marched on Sunday chanting "down with the regime!"
In Rastan to the north, a funeral was held for 17 men killed when military intelligence agents fired at a protest on Friday during which the names were read out of 50 people who said they were resigning their membership of Assad's Baath Party.
Two thousand Kurds in the village of Karbawi near the eastern city of Qamishli attended the funeral of 20-year-old conscript Ahmad Fanar Mustafa on Sunday. His father accused security forces of killing him for refusing to take part in the repression. Fanar Mustafa refused to let the governor of the province attend the funeral of his son. "They kill and then they want to march in the funeral of the murdered," the father was quoted as saying by a witness at the funeral.