Protesters took to the streets across Syria on Monday to denounce a speech by President Bashar al-Assad they said did not meet popular demands for sweeping political change, activists and witnesses said.
“No to dialogue with murderers,” chanted 300 protesters in the Damascus suburb of Irbin, a witness told Reuters by telephone, with the slogans echoing in the background. In a speech at Damascus University dominated by security concerns, Assad accused “saboteurs” among protesters demanding and end to his 11-year rule of serving a foreign conspiracy to sow chaos. Under mounting international pressure and facing wider street protests despite a military crackdown that has killed more than 1,300 people, Assad, from Syria’s minority Alawite sect, said political reforms he had launched since the 3-month uprising would stabilise the country and diffuse grievances. Meanwhile, pro-democracy activists said the three-month-old “revolt” in Syria must go on after al-Assad’s speech. The Coordination Committee, an umbrella group of activists calling for street protests, called for “the revolution to carry on until all its aims have been achieved.” “We consider any dialogue useless that does not turn the page on the current regime,” it said in a statement received by AFP. Assad’s speech on the three-month-old unrest only served to “deepen the crisis.”
