Syria charges hundreds with 'degrading the state'

Hundreds of Syrians have been charged with "degrading the prestige of the state," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, in President Bashar al-Assad's drive to crush protests against his autocratic rule.

The charge, which carries a 3-year prison sentence, was lodged against hundreds of people detained in the last few days, particularly in the run-up to Friday prayers, which have seen increasingly large pro-democracy demonstrations.

"Mass arrests are continuing across Syria in another violation of human rights and international conventions," said Observatory director Rami Abdelrahman.

Other rights organisations said many male detainees had been beated severely in a campaign of arrests that included women, teenagers and the elderly but has failed to deter protesters' appetite for reforms. Syria already has thousands of political prisoners.

The campaign intensified after a tank-backed army unit, headed by Assad's feared brother Maher, last week shelled and machinegunned into submission the old quarter of Deraa, cradle of the six-week-old uprising.

The demonstrations began with demands for political freedom and an end to corruption and now seek the overthrow of Assad, a member of the minority Alawite Shi'ite sect whose family has ruled majority Sunni Muslim Syria for 41 years.

Security forces have killed at least 560 civilians in attacks on demonstrators since the protests erupted in Deraa on March 18, according to human rights groups.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the use of tanks, arbitrary arrests and cuts in power in Deraa was "quite barbaric and amounts to the collective punishment of innocent civilians."

Residents of Damascus suburbs, where many were arrested, said roadblocks and arrests had intensified this week in areas around the capital. One resident said she saw plainclothes security forces putting up sandbags and a machinegun on a road near the town of Kfar Batna.