Syria protesters call for freedom after Assad pledge

AMMAN,  (Reuters) – Thousands of Syrians chanted  slogans calling for greater freedom at independence day rallies  today, witnesses said, a day after President Bashar al-Assad  promised to lift emergency law.
“The people want freedom,” several hundred people shouted at  the grave of independence leader Ibrahim Hananu in Syria’s  second city Aleppo, which has been mostly free of pro-democracy  protests that erupted more than a month ago in the south.
Hundreds also turned out in the southern city of Suweida, in  the heart of the country’s Druze heartland. They chanted “God,  Syria, freedom, that’s all,” before coming under attack from  Assad loyalists, a woman at the demonstration said.
“They came at us with sticks and also hit us with the  pictures they were carrying of Bashar — the same president who  was talking about freedom yesterday,” she said.
The demonstrations, which rights campaigners said included a  march by about 1,500 people in the city of Banias, were held on  the day Syria marked the anniversary of the departure of French  soldiers 65 years ago.
Assad said on Saturday legislation to replace emergency law,  in place for almost 50 years, should be ready by next week. But  he did not address protesters’ demands to curb Syria’s pervasive  security apparatus and dismantle its authoritarian system.
Rights groups say more than 200 people have been killed  since demonstrations erupted in Deraa on March 18 in protest  against the arrest of youths who had scrawled graffiti inspired  by the Arab uprisings in North Africa.
Witnesses said thousands gathered in a main Deraa square  after noon prayers today, chanting for “the downfall of the  regime”. The scene would have been unthinkable in Syria just a  month ago, but residents said the mood was festive and there was  little sign of security forces in the streets.
The unprecedented unrest has spread across the tightly  controlled 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.
But the head of Germany’s intelligence service was quoted today as saying the Assad dynasty’s history of crushing dissent  meant a North Africa-style uprising was unlikely.
“Remember that the father of the current president a few  decades back murdered as many as 30,000 supporters of the Muslim  Brotherhood in Hama,” Ernst Uhrlau told Hamburger Abendblatt  newspaper, referring to Hafez al-Assad’s crushing of a Muslim  Brotherhood uprising in 1982.