Syrian democrats hounded at sit-in

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From combined dispatches

DAMASCUS, Syria -- About 100 activists trying to stage a sit-in demonstration demanding greater freedoms were chased from a downtown square yesterday by hundreds of pro-government demonstrators carrying large pictures of the Syrian president, a human rights committee said.

Some of the activists were also beaten, according to the newly formed National Coordination Committee for Basic Freedom and Human Rights.

The committee, which was established earlier this year, denounced the actions as "repressive and uncivilized behavior which threatens civil peace."

Syria's official news agency, SANA, said the pro-government university students ran into "a group of citizens who were staging a sit-in expressing some demands." It said police intervened to "prevent any clashes."

The incident came a day after hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite Muslims in Lebanon marched in support of President Bashar Assad in the face of intense international pressure on him to withdraw Syria's military and intelligence units from Lebanon.

Yesterday's sit-in was organized to mark the 42nd anniversary of the declaration of emergency laws in Syria and also coincided with the first anniversary of Kurdish protests in northeastern Syria, in which 25 persons were killed and more than 100 injured.

Syria's tiny opposition has become increasingly vocal since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut -- an attack that galvanized international and Lebanese opposition to Syria's 29-year occupation of its neighbor.

Since then, Syria's opposition has publicly backed calls for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday backed a U.N. effort to negotiate a timetable for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon.