Students rally for slain protesters

Syrian students rallied in Damascus yesterday to express solidarity with protesters killed over the weekend, as the army moved in on the flashpoint town of Banias.
France and Germany, meanwhile, slammed the deadly assaults by security forces on anti-regime protesters and called on President Bashar al-Assad to make good on his promises of reform.
"Students rallied in solidarity with the victims of Daraa and Banias, chanting 'We will sacrifice our soul and blood for you martyrs'," a human rights activist told AFP.
He was referring to the southern town of Daraa, a protest hub where rights groups say 26 people were killed on Friday, and the northern coastal town of Banias, where a bloody weekend crackdown left four civilians dead, according to witnesses.
A YouTube video of the Damascus rally showed students chanting "Allah, Freedom and Syria, only!", a recurring slogan of anti-regime protests demanding political reforms and more freedom.
They also chanted "One, one one... the Syrian people are one!", in an apparent bid to exorcise the ghost of sectarian strife raised by authorities as the protests death toll rises.
Abdel-Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights, told AFP some demonstrators chanted pro-regime slogans before security forces intervened.