SYRIAN SECURITY forces fired bullets and tear gas at pro-democracy rallies across the country yesterday, killing at least 49 people – including a young boy – in the bloodiest day of the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime, witnesses and a human rights group said.
The protests every Friday have become weekly bloodbaths as security forces try to crush them. The mounting death tolls have only served to invigorate the protest movement, whose demands have intensified from modest reforms to the downfall of the 40-year Assad dynasty. More than 250 people have been killed over five weeks, human rights groups say.
While protesters were reportedly few in the capital, Damascus, where there was a heavy security presence, thousands marched in Douma, Sitt Zeinab and other suburbs. Some chanted: “The people want the end of the regime,” the slogan adopted by the successful Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings.
Troops and plain-clothes security agents prevented suburban protesters from reaching the centre of Damascus, their declared goal.
This was the sixth consecutive Friday of rallies in Syria since unprecedented protests erupted in the town of Deraa over the detention of 15 teenagers for writing provocative slogans on walls.
The largest rallies again took place in Deraa and neighbouring villages. There were also protests in the central cities of Homs and Hama, and the ports of Latakia and Baniyas.
A few hundred people took part in rallies in the Kurdish northeast, where the government has attempted to appease dissidents by granting citizenship to some 300,000 stateless Kurds.
The city of Aleppo has remained quiet throughout the protests, which have posed the most serious challenge to the Baathist regime since the Muslim Brotherhood rebellion of the 1980s.
The mass protests came the day after President Bashar al-Assad signed legislation lifting the 48- year state of emergency and dissolving state security courts, both key demands of activists. He endorsed a new law allowing citizens to protest peacefully – but only if permission was granted five days beforehand.
The government is arguing that since reforms are going ahead, the protests must stop.
A popular Facebook page has called for co-ordinated, peaceful, country-wide protests on “Great Friday” and posted the cross and crescent, the symbols of Christianity and Islam, over the words “One heart, one hand, one goal.”
Christian churches nevertheless cancelled outdoor services and processions over the Easter weekend. – (Additional reporting AP)
