DAMASCUS: Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad Tuesday ordered a new general amnesty, a day after an offer of “national dialogue” to end unrest in the country, even as activists said five people were killed in anti-government protests. Three people were killed in the central city of Homs, one of them a teenager, and another two in the northeastern province of Deir Ezzor, the activists said, citing residents, as both the pro- and anti-Assad camps took to the streets. After relatives buried the 14-year-old in Homs, security forces fired on mourners leaving the cemetery, causing casualties, an activist who was present said. On the humanitarian front, International Committee of the Red Cross president Jakob Kellenberger said after talks with Syrian authorities that the ICRC has been granted access to areas and people affected by the unrest. Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which took part in a mission organized by the government to Jisr Al-Shughour near the border with Turkey, said that villages in the flashpoint area were mostly deserted. “A UNHCR staff member reported that villages were increasingly empty from around 40 km from Jisr Al-Shughour,” said UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards. “There was no evidence of people working in the fields.” Western governments have been circulating a draft Security Council resolution that would condemn Assad's crackdown but Russia has warned it would veto any such move. Following up on a keynote speech he delivered Monday, the state news agency SANA said Assad had “issued a decree granting a general amnesty for crimes committed before the date of June 20, 2011.” The president had already ordered a general amnesty on May 31 for all political prisoners. “I sensed that that amnesty was not satisfactory so we are going to extend it to include others, without endangering the security of the state,” Assad said in his televised speech. Tens of thousands of people, meanwhile, rallied in central Damascus. Omeyyades Square was turned into a sea of pro-Assad demonstrators, waving Syrian flags and the president's portrait, chanting: “We will sacrifice ourselves for you, Bashar!” State television said a huge pro-Assad demonstration was also held in Homs, a flashpoint city north of Damascus. “Millions of Syrians” flocked to squares around the country to hail his speech, it said. – Agence France
