The Daily Star, Lebanon, 16 July 2011 – Following Friday prayers at Hamza Mosque in the Qibbeh neighborhood of Tripoli, around 100 worshippers marched in nearby streets before gathering at Ibn Sina Square, in what has become a weekly practice.

Protesters performed prayers for the Syrians killed in the harsh crackdown carried out by the Syrian authorities during the four-month uprising.

A number of young protesters set the Iranian flag on fire and stepped on it, rejecting what they called the “Persian project, which tries to dominate the resources … of the country.”

Demonstrators carried posters of victims of the crackdown and banners bearing slogans against the Syrian regime.

Sheikh Zakaria Masri, who delivered Friday’s sermon at the mosque, lashed out at Syria’s ruling Baath Party, which he said has an “atheist doctrine.”

“The most forbidden act being committed in Islamic countries, and especially in Syria, is targeting the creed of the nation by incorporating into it the principles of the Baath Party,” he said.

“These are based on the concepts of communism and socialism imported from the collapsed Soviet Union and Communist China, which is waiting to pounce on the nation,” he added.

Unlike previous weeks, the mosque’s speakers remained off while Masri was making his address.

Masri said that the Baath Party caused bloodshed and dishonored the Syrian people when they rebelled and demanded freedom, after showing “patience for more than 40 years to the oppression of the ruling Baath Party.”

Masri also called upon Mikati not to “work to establish the great Persian state in the Arab world at the expense of the nation’s creed … so that he will not become similar to Afghanistan’s [President Hamid] Karzai and his implementing of the United States of America’s project against the Afghan people.”

Mikati was brought to office by the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition, following Saad Hariri’s ouster.

Internal Security Force vehicles accompanied the demonstrators, while the Lebanese Army took strict measures to maintain calm in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh and the mainly Alawite district of Jabal Mohsen, which saw deadly armed clashes last month.