Timeline: Crackdown on protests in Syria

(Reuters) - Following is a timeline of events in Syria since protests began.

March 15, 2011 - About 40 people join a Syrian protest chanting political slogans in a brief first challenge to the Baath Party, in Hameediyeh market in Old Damascus before dispersing into side streets.

April 19 - Government passes bill lifting 48 years of emergency rule.

April 22 - Security forces and gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad kill at least 100 protesters, rights group says.

July 31 - Syrian tanks storm Hama after a month-long siege.

September 2 - EU imposes ban on purchases of Syrian oil.

November 12 - Arab League suspends Syria.

November 27 - Arab states vote to impose economic sanctions.

November 30 - Turkey says it has suspended all financial credit dealings with Syria and frozen Syrian government assets.

December 7 - Assad denies ordering his troops to kill peaceful demonstrators, telling U.S. television channel ABC that only a "crazy" leader kills his own people.

December 19 - Syria signs Arab League peace plan, agrees to let monitors into the country.

January 22, 2012 - Arab League urges Assad to step down and hand over power to a deputy, a call Syria rejects a day later.

January 24 - The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council says it is withdrawing its 55 monitors from the 165-strong monitoring mission. Syria agrees to extend mission for a month. Four days later the Arab League suspends the monitoring mission.

February 4 - Russia and China veto resolution in U.N. Security Council, backed by Arab League, calling for Assad to step down.

February 16 - The U.N. General Assembly approves a resolution endorsing the Arab League plan calling for Assad to step aside.

February 22 - More than 80 people are killed in Homs including two foreign journalists. Hundreds of people have now been killed in daily bombardments of the city by Assad's besieging forces.

February 23 - Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is appointed U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria.

February 24 - Foreign ministers from more than 50 countries meet in Tunis for the inaugural "Friends of Syria" meeting. Russia and China, allies of Syria, decide not to attend.

Feb 28 - Assad decrees that a new constitution is in force after officials say nearly 90 percent of voters endorsed it in a February 26 referendum. Opponents and the West dismiss the reforms and the referendum as a sham.

March 1 - Syrian rebels pull out of the besieged Baba Amr district of Homs after more than three weeks of bombardment.

March 4 - China warns other powers not to use humanitarian aid for Syria to "interfere" in Syria, while urging unity in the Security Council after a split with Western powers.

March 6 - The five permanent Security Council members and Morocco meet to discuss a U.S.-drafted resolution urging an end to the crackdown. Some Western envoys say the text is too weak.

March 9 - The United Nations estimates at least 30,000 refugees have fled the fighting in Syria since the start of the conflict.

March 11 - Kofi Annan ends talks with Assad and leaves Syria with little sign of progress. Assad tells Annan that opposition "terrorists" are blocking any political solution.

March 12 - The United States and its European allies clash with Russia at a Security Council meeting over how to end escalating violence.

March 13 - Assad sets parliamentary elections under his country's new constitution for May 7.

-- Lavrov says Syrian forces will not stop fighting or withdraw from positions unless rebel forces mirror their move.

-- Three prominent figures resign from the opposition SNC saying they have given up on trying to make the group a more effective player in the revolt against Assad.

-- The United Nations says more than 8,000 people have been killed in Syria.

March 14 - Kofi Annan says he has received a reply from Damascus to his peace proposals but he needs clarifications.

March 15 - Activists say they are sickened by emails which appear to show Assad and his wife shopping for luxury items while the country descends into bloodshed, a day after Britain's Guardian newspaper said it obtained some 3,000 emails from Assad and his wife, Asma.

March 17 - Two car bombs in Damascus kill 27 people and wound at least 100. The next day a car bomb strikes Syria's second city Aleppo.

March 21 - Russia and China join the rest of the U.N. Security Council in throwing its weight behind Annan to end the conflict, threatening Syria with unspecified "further steps" if it failed to comply with Annan's peace plan.

-- The Opposition say they will try to overcome crippling feuds in a meeting provisionally set for March 26 and ahead of a an April 1 Istanbul conference of the "Friends of Syria"

March 23 - The U.N. Human Rights Council condemns what it called "sharply escalating" violations by Syrian forces. However both Russia and China vote against a call by the Council to extend a probe into the violations.

-- The EU slaps sanctions on the mother, sister and influential wife of Assad.

(Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/timeline-crackdown-protests-syria-161559332.html

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