Last Friday, 29 martyrs from various cities and regions of Syria fell at the hands of security forces. The regime is continuing to use violence against peaceful protesters, causing so far the deaths of more than 2000 martyrs. Meanwhile, the protest movement is gaining in intensity, proportionately to the increase in violence used against it, and is exposing the regime’s inability to suppress protesters. This is why the regime has now decided to play its final card, which is sectarian tension.
The regime is deliberately stirring up sectarian turmoil in Syria by playing off Syria’s sects against one another. This is what has been happening for days in the town of Qatana, a suburb of Damascus, where security forces and thugs (Shabiha) are attacking neighborhoods whose residents had participated in peaceful protests. The same is happening today in numerous districts of Homs, where groups of Shabiha are using language and behavior deliberately meant to create and inflame sectarian tensionI replaced sectarianism with sectarian tension, all in the hope of causing a deviation in the course of what has been and still is a remarkably peaceful and unifying popular movement.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC) emphasize that the regime’s feeble attempts at playing the sectarian card and sacrificing national unity for the sole purpose of maintaining an autocratic regime will not succeed. The LCC emphasizes as well that the sons and daughters of Syria, representing all its sects, and who possess a mature and alert sense of awareness and national responsibility, stand with the objectives of the revolution to transform Syria into a civil democracy that ensures the freedom and dignity of all citizens. The Republic of Syria is for all Syrians.
We also ask of committees in all cities and areas to work on exposing the aim of the regime to incite sectarian division, and to emphasize their refusal to be drawn into it in any way, so as to preserve our revolution and our unity as Syrians facing a criminal tyrannical regime.
Victory to our revolution, and mercy onto our martyrs!
