Samira Al-Masalma fired

Samira Al-Masalma, the editor of the government daily Tishrin, was fired for giving Al-Jazeera an interview the day before about the protests in the southern city of Deraa. In the course of the interview, she called on the government to arrest those responsible for the bloodshed in Deraa earlier that day. “The instructions not to fire on demonstrators were not respected,” she said. “If this was the work of a third party, which is what I think, the security forces should bring them to justice.”