Yesterday, the 5th January, marked a new stage in the month long ‘Dignity strike’ in Syria, which has spread to all of Syria’s major cities and involved thousands of workers. The latest phase involves disruption of traffic and the creation of ‘noise disturbances’, with people urged to occupy the streets, bang pots and drums, and chant anti-regime slogans.

Reports and videos coming in via the Syrian Local Coordinating Committee (LCC) suggest that thousands occupied the streets yesterday across the country, including in Damascus.

This video, shot yesterday morning, shows people in the Damascus suburb of Zamalka  occupying the streets next to shops closed by the strike:

This video shows a street occupation taking place yesterday evening in the Barzeh suburb of Damascus:

The LCC reports ‘a successful strike all over the city’ in the northeastern city of Al-Hasakah. In the northwestern city of Idlib and the southwestern city of Deraa video footage shows shops and offices closed by the strike. In Hama, there are reports of intensive gunfire as residents block roads with trash containers, in Homs there is a sit-in in the Khaldieh neighbourhood and in Deir Ezzor, the largest city in northeastern Syria, there are reports of the Revolutionary Youth setting up checkpoints and blocking the roads with burning tyres.

The next stage in the strike is for international roads and transport links to be shut down.