No Improvement in Syria

Other then the fact AlJazeera reporter Dorothy Parvaz, has been detained in Syria since April 29th, from the moment she landed at the airport in Damascus, several thousand people are still detained and they evaluate the deaths close to 1000 Syrians, the crush against pro-democracy supporters is far from over. 

The fact 13 Syrian officials have been hit with European Sanctions doesn't seem to deter the fact that today there is heavy shelling in the Bab Amro neighborhood of Homs. Of the 13 Syrian officials one is the President Assad's brother and one is his cousin. Are the people ruling Syria so out of touch with the dozens of various armed security forces, that they don't know what they are doing? Claiming the country is being invaded by armed gangs? Really? Amina, is part of an armed gang?

I know being a Canadian I've been saying army when there has been attacks, but I realize that I cannot tell the difference between the Army, and the various forms of security forces in Syria. I believe it was Amina who joked that if you get arrested by one security force, once you get released, another security group may stop you to find out what the first group wanted to know.

As a Canadian  living in Montreal I have seen "Martial law" once, when I was a small child, during the October Crisis. It was the only time that Canada invoked the War Measures Act in time of Peace. And technically it wasn't Martial law. It was an appearance thereof. The Mayor of Montreal, Drapeau, the premier of Quebec, Bourassa had asked federal government for help and Trudeau had requested the governor general  to send the army. However the army was used in a supportive role reporting to the civilian authorities in Quebec.  

The other time I've seen the army used, was in the Oka Crisis.  I don't generally fear the Montreal police, the Quebec Provincial police or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the 3 layers of police force available here.  Admittedly having dated a Mohawk, I have little respect for the way most police forces deal with the Native Americans, but it seems they are overall treated better then your average Syrian under Bashar Al-Assad's rule.

I know my Mohawk ex would probably disagree, but as much as he thinks he's in touch with what goes on out there, he's pretty clueless. He likes to act like he's been to hell and back but compared to what any Lebanese went through in the civil war or what is going in Syria at the moment, he hasn't seen anything worth mentioning!  

The other headline that had me stunned today was about the schoolgirls targeted in the Bahrain raids. Schoolgirls.  More then 15 of them as young as 12 were rounded up and detained for up to 3 days,  beaten by police with threats of rape.  It takes a really BIG MAN to threaten a girl of rape. Wow! What next? They will be arresting babies?