At least 15 protesters were killed by security forces during massive demonstrations Friday across Syria, witnesses and activists told AFP in telephone interviews.
Security forces opened fire with live rounds to disperse protesters who took to the streets in several cities across Syria in response to calls for “Good Friday” rallies, the sources said. At least eight people were killed in the town of Ezreh, in the southern province of Daraa, epicentre of pro-reform and anti-regime protests that broke out in mid-March, the sources said. One person was killed in Hirak, also in the Daraa region, while six died in the northern Damascus suburb of Douma, the sources added. Other human rights activists spoke of several people killed and wounded in the central city of Homs, as well as in three Damascus neighbourhoods — Al-Maadamiyah, Zamalkah and Kabun — but the reports could not be immediately verified.
A day after President Bashar al-Assad scrapped emergency rule, his forces fired live rounds at tens of thousands of demonstrators in the central protest hub of Homs, wounding at least two, an activist said. Regime gunfire also wounded at least five other people when they tried to break up a demonstration in the northern Damascus suburb of Douma, a human rights activist there said.
Thousands of protesters also swarmed the streets of the mainly Kurdish northeastern city of Qamishli, the coastal city of Banias and southern flashpoint town of Daraa. “Freedom, freedom,” and “God, Syria, freedom, that’s all,” the protesters, who witnesses said numbered around 6,000, chanted in Qamishli as they carried a giant Syrian flag. Several thousand in Daraa, a key focus of the unprecedented demonstrations that broke out more than a month ago, called for the fall of Assad’s regime. Assad, in power since replacing his father Hafez as president in 2000, issued decrees Thursday to overturn the state of emergency as well as abolish the state security court and allow citizens to hold peaceful demonstrations.
The demonstrations came after call by Facebook group The Syrian Revolution 2011 for rallies spanning the Christian and Muslim faiths on “Good Friday,” which commemorates Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. Friday is also the Muslim day of rest when the biggest demonstrations have been staged across Syria after weekly prayers.
