BICOM

Students in Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, demonstrated yesterday in the face of a heavy police presence and provocations by pro-regime thugs. Around 150 students demanded political freedoms and an end to Ba’ath party rule in a protest on the university campus. The protest was dispersed by Ba’ath party members who organised a rival, pro-regime demonstration. The student demonstration was held to show solidarity with protestors in Deraa in southern Syria, the town where the current Syrian uprising began.

Aleppo is a majority Sunni city, and is widely seen as the centre for the Sunni merchant and business class. For this reason, its participation in protests is seen as of particular importance. The Assad regime rests essentially on a tacit agreement between the Sunni merchant class and the mainly Alawite military and security elite. Aleppo was a centre of Muslim Brotherhood activity in the past, but has been largely quiet during the current wave of protests. The commencement of protests, albeit on a small scale, is thus of particular significance.