Protests in Damascus

"The resilience of the protest movement is not immediately apparent in Damascus. On Fridays, hundreds of plainclothes mukhabarat, or secret police, mill around public places. There are military checkpoints on the roads out of the city, and usually bustling markets and bus stations are empty. Suburbs such as Muadhimiya and Douma, where thousands have rallied in recent weeks, are now inaccessible, locked down by the army, with movements by residents severely restricted.  But there are protests, albeit small and swiftly dispersed, in the city itself. On Thursday nights before the protests, young Syrians look at dinky laptops in cafes with Wi-Fi, reading Facebook pages about protests and opposition movements. And Damascus residents, though conditioned by decades of heavy surveillance not to express views publicly, speak out against the regime."