Fresh protests rattle Syria as death toll mounts

A picture taken by a mobile phone shows a funeral in Homs, 160 kilometres (100 miles) to the north of Damascus, Syria yesterday. Photo: AFP

Fresh protests shook Syria yesterday as thousands took to the streets a day after 11 people were killed by security forces as the clamour for an end to martial law billowed, activists said.
Protests gripped the central city of Homs, the protest hub of Daraa in the south as well as in Jisr al-Shoughour near the northwestern city of Idleb despite pledges by the president to lift a draconian emergency law.
Activists have said Assad's vow on Saturday to lift within a week nearly five decades of emergency law were insufficient, and protests shook Syria again within hours of the presidential speech.
Protesters are also demanding the release of political prisoners and the end of the ruling Baath party's grip over the state and society as stipulated by the constitution.
Tens of thousands of mourners marched in Homs yesterday a day after security forces fired live rounds to disperse demonstrators in the Bab Sba'a area of town, killing at least seven people, activists said.
A sea of mourners swamped the city for the funerals of the seven people killed and their coffins were held shoulder high above the crowds, some open, others covered with Syrian flags, witnesses said.
Many of them clapping their hands, mourners called for "the fall of the regime" and "freedom" as they paid tribute to the "martyrs," activists said. About 3,000 people also staged a sit-in the city centre.
Two activists spoke of seven dead in Homs, but a third one said nine had died late Saturday. They all agreed however that some 20 people had been wounded.
Tensions had been running high in Homs since the announcement on Saturday that a Muslim cleric arrested a week earlier had died in custody.