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French envoy in solidarity trip to Syria protest city

France's ambassador to Syria travelled to the flashpoint city of Hama to show solidarity with the victims of a crackdown on anti-government protestors, officials said on Friday.

Published: 8 July 2011 17:34 CEST

“He went to show France’s engagement with the victims, the civilian population,” foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told reporters, adding that the envoy went to Hama on Thursday.

Hundreds of people have fled Hama ahead of demonstrations Friday under the banner of “no to dialogue” with President Bashar al-Assad. More than 150,000 protesters gathered after weekly prayers to defy the regime, activists said.

“The French ambassador did go to Hama yesterday,” Valero confirmed in Paris. “In particular, he went to one of the main hospitals in the city where he met medical teams, the wounded and their families.

“France repeats its concern over the fate of the inhabitants of the city of Hama, and its condemnation of the violence being carried out by Syrian authorities against the protesters and the civilian population.”

The United States’ ambassador to Syria also visited Hama on Thursday, leading the regime to accuse Washington of fomenting trouble and meddling in its internal affairs.

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Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

SPT, (Särskild polistaktik), is a tactic where the police work with communication rather than physical measures to reduce the risk of conflicts during events like demonstrations.

Tactics include knowledge about how social movements function and how crowds act, as well as understanding how individuals and groups act in a given situation. Police may attempt to engage in collaboration and trust building, which they are specially trained to do.

Katharina von Sydow, chairwoman of the Police Association West Region, told Swedish Radio P4 West that the concept should exist throughout the country.

“We have nothing to defend ourselves within 10 to 15 metres. We need tools to stop this type of violent riot without doing too much damage,” she said.

SPT is used in the West region, the South region and in Stockholm, which doesn’t cover all the places where the Easter weekend riots took place.

In the wake of the riots, police unions and the police’s chief safety representative had a meeting with the National Police Chief, Anders Tornberg, and demanded an evaluation of the police’s work. Katharina von Sydow now hopes that the tactics will be introduced everywhere.

“This concept must exist throughout the country”, she said.

During the Easter weekend around 200 people were involved in riots after a planned demonstration by anti-Muslim Danish politician Rasmus Paludan and his party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), that included the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Police revealed on Friday that at least 104 officers were injured in counter-demonstrations that they say were hijacked by criminal gangs intent on targeting the police.

Forty people were arrested and police are continuing to investigate the violent riots for which they admitted they were unprepared.

Paludan’s application for another demonstration this weekend was rejected by police.

In Norway on Saturday, police used tear gas against several people during a Koran-burning demonstration after hundreds of counter-demonstrators clashed with police in the town of Sandefjord.

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