Reuters Live Blog

Opposition activists say that Syrian security forces shot dead three pro-democracy demonstrators at a protest in Damascus, Reuters reports.

The three youths were killed in the afternoon, during what the opposition calls one of the biggest demonstrations in the capital since the uprising began last March. They said that thousands of demonstrators marched out of mosques in the Mezze district of the city, next to Umayyad Square.

Syria has told Libya and Tunisia to close their embassies in Damascus within 72 hours, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday, after the two North African countries announced similar measures against Syria.

Libya said on Thursday it had given Syria's charge d'affaires and his staff in Tripoli three days to leave the country, and last week Tunisia said it had started procedures to expel the Syrian ambassador and withdraw recognition of the Syrian leadership under President Bashar al-Assad. [Reuters]

A Bahraini woman who rights group Amnesty International said was jailed for listening to a revolutionary song in her car has been released and given a hero's welcome by a 10,000-strong opposition rally, a rights activist said on Tuesday.

Fadhila al-Mubarak was detained during martial law last year at a checkpoint for listening to a tape praising a pro-democracy protest movement that erupted in February after uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, Said Yousef al-Muhafda said.

Mubarak was sentenced to four years in jail for taking part in the Pearl Roundabout protests, inciting hatred of the government and insulting a public official, Muhafda said.

The sentence was later reduced to 18 months and must still be appealed.

"She didn't stop playing the song and that's why they got angry. It was a personal thing," he said, referring to the officers who arrested Mubarak. She was freed on Monday. [Reuters]

Reuters reports that hundreds in the city of Homs have fallen prey to a growing sectarian kidnapping trade fuelled by increasing unrest. 

Residents say Homs has become a lawless place where people are dragged away at gunpoint almost daily, targeted solely for their religious identity. 

"My captors beat me and mocked me for being Sunni. They tied me to a metal bed and I slept sitting up," Abu Ahmed, Abu Ahmed, a 35-year-old house painter, said. 

In Homs, members of the same minority sect to which Assad himself belongs kidnap Sunni Muslims. Those who are part of the Sunni majority go after Alawites. 

So far, sectarian violence and killing are rarely the goals of the abductions. But the kidnapping trend in the city of one million people, Syria's third largest, has taken on a logic of its own. 

Some seize people for money in Homs, where the bloody turmoil paralysing the city has left thousands jobless. Others kidnap to trade hostages. And some simply feel that having captives on hand could serve as leverage later. 

Residents say police write reports but never take action. 

"There is no one to complain to. There's no law. You either sit and wait for God's mercy, or you kidnap too. Homs is now in the hands of hooligans. Rationality is gone," said Jamal, 30, an Alawite driver held for five days."