Anti-regime protesters called for permanent sit-ins from Tuesday in Syria where more than 1,000 people were reportedly arrested as the European Union fine-tuned new sanctions against Syria.
France said sanctions being discussed by the European Union should target Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Washington condemned "barbaric" measures against anti-regime demonstrators.
Amnesty International meanwhile released a statement on "first-hand reports of torture" from detainees held in Syria.
As a wave of arrests intensified, a Facebook post by the Syrian Revolution 2011 website urged "Syrians in all regions to gather from Tuesday evening in all public places to organise sit-ins" round the clock.
The National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria said more than 1,000 people had been arrested in two days.
"There has been an insane intensification of arrests in towns. The authorities are arresting anyone who wants to demonstrate, especially writers, intellectuals and activists known to be demanding reform," it said.
Amnesty also said a "wave of arrests of anti-government protesters intensified over the weekend."
"Detainees who were recently released told the organisation of beatings and harsh conditions in detention, raising fears for the safety of hundreds of others being held, including at least 499 people who were arrested on Sunday in house-to-house raids in the southern town of Daraa," said Amnesty.
"The use of unwarranted lethal force, arbitrary detention and torture appear to be the desperate actions of a government that is intolerant of dissent and must be halted immediately," said Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa deputy director Philip Luther.
The United States denounced measures used by Syria to put down seven weeks of anti-regime protests.
"These are quite frankly barbaric measures and they amount to the collective punishment of innocent civilians," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in Washington.
He spoke specifically about Daraa, the epicentre of the protest movement launched March 15, which has been sealed by the army since April 25 when up to 5,000 troops backed by tanks rolled into the town.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Assad's government is losing legitimacy and EU sanctions should target the Syrian president.
Asked whether France wanted Assad to be specifically named in the measures being discussed in Brussels, Alain Juppe told reporters: "France wishes so."
"A government that kills its citizens because its citizens want to express themselves and install a real democracy loses its legitimacy," he said.
President Nicolas Sarkozy also told L'Express magazine: "For Syria we are going to push for the adoption of the harshest possible sanctions."
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