Two months ago Vogue magazine published a breathless, gushing portrait of Asma Al-Assad - the first lady of Syria in which she talked of wanting to empower young Syrians with what she called "Active Citizenship". Two months later, the people of Syria took to the streets demanding change in their tyrannical government. In response President Bashar Al-Assad's security and military forces have killed hundreds of active citizens and Western nations who have long ignored Syria's decades of brutality are saying they will stay on the sidelines.

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PART ONE

Satire

It's Wednesday April 27th.

Jack Layton says he is willing to reopen talks on the Constitution so long as there is reasonable chance of Quebec signing it.

Currently, the secret behind Jack's surge is finally revealed: zeroing in on issues no one seems to care about.

This is The Current.

Syria Government Crackdown - George Jabbour

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague said today that Syria is at a "fork in the road" as he justified Britain's' view that military intervention in the middle east country is not an option. The U.S. is saying the same thing even as NATO countries including Canada stepped up attacks on Libya in the last 48 hours.

International leaders have been speaking out and condemning the Syrian government's brutal crackdown against its civilian protesters but that's where it stops. Since the 1st of this month, Syrians have been in the streets demanding change in the dictatorial rule of the Assad family. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has responded with live ammunition and tanks.

Estimates today put the death toll at 453 with reports of unburied bodies lying in the streets of Daraa where the protests and the governments brutal response to them have been most pronounced. It's hard to verify the numbers ... we are told hundreds of people have been arrested. Foreign media have been barred from the country and reporting inside Syria has always been problematic. Many Syrians fearing for their safety are now reluctant to leave their homes.

But Social media has helped Syrians tell the world what is happening inside cities such as Daraa. Suzanne Kawamleh is a Syrian living in Valparaiso, Indiana. Her family is in Damascus and Daraa. She's been gathering information and sending it out via Twitter and Facebook and translating videos on YouTube. We aired a clip.

From inside Syria this morning, we were joined by George Jabbour. He is a former member of the Syrian parliament and he's the president of the United Nations Association of Syria. George Jabbour was in Damascus.

Syria Government Crackdown - Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk is the Middle East Correspondent for British newspaper, The Independent. He's been covering this story from Beirut.

Syria Government Crackdown - Maher Arar

Maher Arar knows first-hand what the Syrian regime is capable of. He's a Canadian citizen who spent a year imprisoned in his native Syria after being renditioned by the U.S. ... held in a dark, narrow cell and tortured after being falsely identified as a terror suspect by the RCMP. He is now an adjunct research professor at The School of Information and Technology at the University of Ottawa, and is the publisher of PRISM, an online magazine focused on national security issues. Maher Arar was in our Ottawa studio.

Related Links:

• Syria leader makes conciliatory gestures in bid to end protests By Meris Lutz - Los Angeles Times
• Syrian University Protests Violently Suppressed By Katherine Zoepf - The New York Times
• Robert Fisk: Shifting blame to Lebanon may be the method in Assad's madness - The Independent
• International Outcry Grows Over Syria Crackdown By Anthony Shadid - The New York Times
• Syrian crackdown shows weakness By Maher Arar - Ottawa Citizen
• Maher Arar remains hopeful and concerned about future of Syria By Jordan Press - Postmedia News
• Interview with Bashar al-Assad - Wall Street Journal 

Other segments from today's show:

• Syria Government Crackdown
• Citizenship & War Crimes