Assad path of repression ‘dead end’

UN chief Ban Ki-moon yesterday urged Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to stop killing his own people, saying the path of repression was a “dead end,” as Damascus announced a general amnesty for crimes committed during the unrest.
“The winds of change will not cease to blow. The flame ignited in Tunisia will not be dimmed,” Ban Ki-moon added in a keynote address at a conference in Beirut on democracy in the Arab world.
Ban’s comments came as the Syrian president announced a general amnesty for crimes committed during the popular unrest that has rocked the country over the past 10 months, “between March 15, 2011 and January 15, 2012.” And qualified for infringements of the law on peaceful demonstrations, the possession of unlawful weapons and army desertion.
The opposition Muslim Brotherhood dismissed the amnesty, describing it – the third of its kind since the uprising began – as “neither serious nor credible,” and “plain propaganda.”