AMMAN, (Reuters) – Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters at a funeral yesterday, witnesses said, and an announcement that President Bashar al-Assad would lift 48-years of emergency rule failed to quell fury on the streets.
Two witnesses said security forces killed three mourners when they opened fire on a funeral for a man killed the day before, which turned into a demonstration on a highway outside the town of Talbiseh, north of the central city of Homs.
One resident said he counted five tanks and saw soldiers wearing combat gear deployed around the town.
Chants at protests yesterday, Syria’s Independence Day holiday, more hostile towards Assad than at previous marches held in recent weeks, a sign that a promise to lift the country’s hated emergency law had failed to appease the public.
Opposition figures say they believe new laws that will replace the emergency rule are likely to retain severe curbs on political freedoms.
Thousands of demonstrators called for Bashar’s overthrow at another funeral, held in Hirak town northeast of the southern city of Deraaa, for soldier Mohammad Ali Radwan al-Qoman, whose relatives believe he was tortured by the security forces.
“Freedom, freedom Syria, Bashar get out,” people chanted, their slogans audible in a telephone call with one of the mourners at the funeral.
A relative, who declined to be named, said Qoman’s family were told he had been accidentally electrocuted at his unit, but the 20-year-old conscript had signs of beating to his feet and doctors at the local hospital said there were signs of torture.
DEATH TOLL RISING
Assad named a new cabinet last week, and in a speech to his ministers on Saturday said legislation to replace the emergency law should be ready by next week. But he did not address protesters’ demands to curb Syria’s security apparatus and dismantle its authoritarian system.
Protests against Assad’s authoritarian rule began in Deraa after teenagers were arrested for scrawling pro-democracy graffiti more than a month ago. Demonstrations have spread across large parts of the country of 20 million people, inspired by uprisings in other parts of the Arab world this year.
The death toll, which rights groups put at more than 200 people, continues to rise. Assad says Syria is the target of a conspiracy and authorities blame the violence on armed gangs and “infiltrators” supplied with weapons from Lebanon and Iraq.
The unprecedented unrest has spread across the authoritarian state, posing the sternest challenge yet to Assad, who assumed the presidency in 2000 when his father, Hafez al-Assad, died after 30 years in power.