rule rocks the country.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/04/201148131548860250.htmlSyrian security forces have killed at least 27 demonstrators in the southern city of Daraa, amid fresh protests against the rule of Bashar al-Assad, hospital sources and witnesses told the Reuters news agency. The deaths occurred after Friday prayers when security forces opened fire with rubber-coated bullets and live rounds to disperse stone-throwing protesters, a witness told Al Jazeera.
In the east, thousands of ethnic Kurds also demonstrated for reform despite the Syrian president's offer this week to ease rules which bar many Kurds from citizenship. Separate protests erupted in the western port city of Latakia, Tartus, Baniyas, Homs - near the Lebanese border - and in Edlib, in the northwest of the country. Gunfire was also heard in Harasta, a suburb of the capital, Damascus.
Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting on Friday from Douma, another Damascus suburb, said there were no security forces visible in the area. But "it's a new situation in Syria", she said. "We saw thousands of people taking to the streets after Friday prayers, from all walks of life: young and old, professionals and not professionals, educated, not educated, there were some Islamists, some nationalists.
Mazen Darwish, an activist in Damascus, told Al Jazeera that the pledged reforms were positive but not enough. "It's not about this problem or that problem. It's about transforming Syria from dictatorship to democracy," he said. "To change the constitution, open up political life, to have free press and political parties and lift the emergency law."