A giant flag of the Syrian opposition was Friday unfurled on construction scaffolding under the legs of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
According to weekly French newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur, the 7-by-30 metre green-white-black tricolour with three stars on the white stripe – and speckled with simulated blood stains – was attached by activists of the “France Syria Democracy” organisation.
The organisation campaigns for a foreign military intervention to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
“The international community, through its inaction, becomes an accomplice of al-Assad. It’s time to act,” said organisation president Ismael Hashem, one of the two climbers who attached the flag.
“Thousands of people were killed by Assad’s bullets. This is because the international community is doing nothing,” he said.
About a dozen campaigners held banners condemning the Assad regime.
Police cordoned off the area and ordered tourists to evacuate the tower. Hashem and another climber were detained by police.
The Syrian opposition uses the flag of the Syrian Republic (1930-1958), which was also the flag of the Syrian Arab Republic in 1961-1963.
–IANS