International Community Considers Sanctions on Syria

Criticism rained down on Syria and its president, Bashar al-Assad, as the U.K., France, and the U.S. said they are mulling sanctions on the country Tuesday, following intensified attacks on protesters that started over last weekend.

According to various sources including Amnesty International, at least 390 people have been killed by security forces during the past two months of demonstrations.

Meanwhile, the U.S. issued its strongest statements yet regarding the crackdown.

“We strongly oppose the Syrian government’s treatment of its citizens and we continue to oppose its continued destabilizing behavior, including support for terrorism and terrorist groups. We call on President Assad to change course now and heed the calls of his own people,” White House spokesperson Jay Carney told reporters on Tuesday.

The White House spokesman added that a “range of possible policy options” are on the table in dealing with Assad’s regime including sanctions. However, he was not specific as to what those are.

Italy, France, Portugal and the U.K. said on Tuesday that they are going to push for sanctions on the country to end the crackdown, reported the BBC.

"We issue a strong call on the authorities in Damascus to end the violent repression," French President Nicholas Sarkozy told reporters, according to the report.

The U.K. echoed similar concerns. “This violent repression must stop. President Assad should order his authorities to show restraint and to respond to the legitimate demands of his people with immediate and genuine reform, not with brutal repression,” said Foreign Secretary William Hague, according to the BBC.

Amnesty International called on the United Nations Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court for war crimes, as it did with Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.

“The Syrian government and its security forces have long felt able to operate with total impunity, and we are now seeing the result of that in the kinds of bloody acts that they have been committing on the streets of Syria in recent days,” Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, stated.

The group also said that the international community should freeze Assad’s assets as well as issue an embargo on arms flowing into the locked down country.

Assad last week said that he would lift the decades-old emergency law, a primary demand that protesters were requesting. However, last Friday, protesters held their largest protests yet and security forces fired upon them, killing more than 100.

Syria state-run media claims that protesters instigated the clashes, ransacked local businesses, and “martyred” police officers—claims that Amnesty dismissed.

On April 25, the U.S. Department of State issued a travel warning against Syria, urging U.S. citizens to immediately leave the country "while commercial transportation is readily available."

The U.S. also ordered family members of U.S. government employees and certain non-emergency staff to depart the country. "Embassy operations will continue to the extent possible under the constraints of an evolving security situation," reads the advisory announcement.