Syria Charges Hundreds With ‘Maligning the State’

Hundreds of the Syrians rounded up in recent days have been charged with “maligning the prestige of the state,” an offense punishable by a three-year prison term, a human rights group tells Reuters. “Mass arrests are continuing across Syria in another violation of human rights and international conventions,” a member of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad promised today that the siege of Daraa would end “very soon,” downplaying the army’s assault there as a run-of-the-mill occurrence. “Any country in the world could be subjected to events that Daraa has been subjected to,” he told a semi-official newspaper. (More Syria stories.)