Epress.am News from Armenia
Syria has deployed security forces to the northern city of Latakia after violent protests left there at least 12 people dead and more than 150 injured amid calls for reform, reports Al-Jazeera English.
Troops patrolled the streets of Latakia — a religiously diverse port city 350 km northwest of the capital, Damascus — in force on Sunday, in response to a wave of unrest that has put president Bashar al-Assad under unprecedented pressure.
Syrian authorities have accused “armed groups” of seeking to incite sectarian strife in the city, which has seen violent clashes between pro-reform protesters, security forces and government supporters.
Dozens of pro-reform protesters have been killed in similar clashes in towns and cities across the country, including the city of Daraa and nearby Sanamin.
In Sanamin, the relatives of those killed in clashes on Friday said their loved ones had been demonstrating peacefully and that security forces — not gunmen — killed at least 10 people there.
However, Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to the president, told Al Jazeera’s Cal Perry that “what happened in Sanamin, it was not a protest, it was not a demonstration, it was a group of about 10 people who attacked a police station”.
The competing claims came as Syrian authorities announced they would end decades of emergency rule in the country.
Shaaban told our correspondent that the law would “absolutely” be lifted, but she failed to give a timetable.
The repeal of the emergency law, in place since the 1963 coup that brought the Baath Party to power, has been a key demand of protesters demanding greater political freedoms.
As reported by international press earlier, more than 200 political prisoners were released after the US and the UN condemned the Syrian government following reports that troops fired on peaceful protesters on Friday.