Syrian activists staged anti-Russian protests on Wednesday as Moscow again blocked a Western-led drive for UN sanctions over President Bashar al-Assad's bloody crackdown in the country.
Pro-democracy activists called a "day of anger" across Syria on Tuesday to protest against Russia's backing for President Bashar al-Assad, after his security forces shot dead at least another 19 people.
"Do not support the killers," activists urged Russia in a message announcing Tuesday's action posted on The Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook page that has been the engine for the six-month-old revolt against Assad's regime.
"We express our anger towards Russia and the Russian government. The regime will disappear but the people will live," the activists added.
Moscow has blocked Western-led efforts at the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against the Syrian regime and is promoting a rival draft resolution that simply calls on the government and the opposition to open direct talks - a move protests leaders refuse to consider until the crackdown ends.
Demonstrators burned Russian flags in the flashpoint protest hubs of Homs in the center and Deraa in the south in protest at Moscow’s support for President Bashar Assad, activists said.
The Assad regime is an important customer for Russia's arms exports, which has been disrupted amid the Arab Spring, as well as other major contracts worth billions of dollars per annum.
On Tuesday, police and troops again deployed in force, carrying out search and arrest operations in a string of towns, activists said.
One person was killed during searches in Deir al-Zour province in the northeast while five more were wounded when troops went house to house in Houla in Homs province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP in Cyprus.
Also in Homs, two people were reported dead, one of whom was kidnapped four days ago and whose corpse was handed to the family and a second succumbing to injuries suffered during security operations Saturday, the Observatory said.
In addition, at least 34 people were arrested in the town of Zabadani, 50 kilometers west of Damascus, where the army was deployed at dawn, according to the observatory and Local Coordination Committees (LCC ).
The security forces arrested more than 160 people in Idlib province near the Turkish border, and dozens more in Deraa, in satellite towns around the capital, and in the Mediterranean coastal towns of Latakia and Banias, the Britain-based watchdog said.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that, as of Monday, a total of 2,600 people had been killed in the Syrian government’s crackdown on protests.