In a new change: Syrian official coverage for a sit in

For the first time, the Syrian authorities permitted on Sunday scores of journalists to use their cameras to recording a sit-in carried out by active committees and commissions in the fields of politics and human rights. This was on the background of a trial for the banned Democratic Kurdish unity party.

Both the Syrian ministry of information and the ministry of the interior cooperated with the TV crews which came to the site of the sit-in where scores of Syrians and Kurds gathered carrying banners calling for abrogating the state of emergency, the emergency law and releasing prisoners.

The gatherers chanted slogans in Arabic and Kurdish languages and carried pictures for the detainees especially member of the political committee in the banned democratic Kurdish unity party Mahmoud Abu Saber. One of the human rights activist carried pictures for the Kurdish Sheikh Muhammad Mashouq al-Jaznawi. No information is so far available on the whereabouts ofal-Jaznawi since he left five days ago the Islamic studies center in Damascus, as alleged by human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni.