Syria's Assad issues pardon for draft dodgers

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued on Saturday a presidential pardon regarding military service violations, the official SANA news agency reported.

The amnesty covers the crimes of desertion inside Syria and abroad as well as other military service-related crimes mentioned in the military law, said SANA.

The reports said that the amnesty gives defectors who fled the country two months to hand themselves in, and one month for those still inside Syria.

The president usually issues such amnesties each year, but this year the pardon on the military service violations has a special importance amid reports of high number of draft dodgers.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based watchdog group, said recently that there are 70 thousands draft dodgers who averted to report to service since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in mid-March 2011.

Local community advertisement campaigns have started mushrooming in the capital Damascus, urging the young men to join the military service.

"Join the army," "the army is ours" or "with our army we win our country," read some street signs.

Western reports said recently that the Syrian army, with 300,000 fighters ahead of the crisis, has lost a lot of its soldiers during the grinding conflict. Enditem