Nov. 14, 2011

The Arab League on November 12 moved to suspend Syria on the grounds that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had defied an agreement with the League to stop the violent repression of pro-democracy demonstrators in that country. The Arab League is an organization of 22 Middle Eastern and African countries where Arabic is the main spoken language. The League threatened political and economic sanctions if Assad failed to comply. The agreement called for Assad’s government to halt the violence directed toward civilians, to withdraw all its security forces from civilian areas, and to release political prisoners, which are believed to number in the tens of thousands. An estimated 3,800 people have been killed in Syria since mid-March, when Assad’s forces began a violent crackdown on antigovernment protesters.

King Abdullah II     AP Photo

On November 14, Jordan’s King Abdullah II became the first Arab leader to openly call on Assad to leave office. In a BBC interview, Abdullah declared, “If Bashar [al-Assad] had an interest in his country he would step down.” The king went on to say that if he were in Assad’s position, he would make sure “whoever comes behind me has the ability to change the status quo (the existing state of affairs).”

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