Syria's Assad has ended five decades of emergency rule

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad addressing parliament in Damascus in March 2011. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday issued decrees ending nearly five decades of emergency law, abolishing state security courts and allowing citizens to protest peacefully, state television reported. The announcements made successively in news flashes on state television said Assad was ending the emergency law imposed when the ruling Baath Party seized power in 1963 as well as the state security courts. A third decree said citizens would be granted "the right to peacefully demonstrate" and noted that this is one of the "basic human rights guaranteed by the Syrian constitution." The decree issued by Assad would "regulate" that right to demonstrate.

The moves are aimed at placating more than a month of unprecedented protests across Syria.Amnesty International says about 220 people have been killed in the crackdown on the protests, which first erupted in the capital Damascus on March 15.

.Pro-democracy protesters again took to the streets of the central city of Homs, mourning eight "martyrs" they said were killed there when security forces fired on a sit-in rally on Tuesday. The continuing violence drew fresh condemnation from the United States, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying Damascus needed to launch a "serious political process" to end the deadly unrest. The government "must cease the violence and begin a serious political process" Clinton said. "We strongly condemn the ongoing violence committed against peaceful protesters by the Syrian government. Al-Watan said the "presidency of the republic will today enact three decrees on the lifting of the emergency law, the abolition of the State Security Court and the regulation of peaceful demonstrations," quoting an unnamed senior official.

Repeal of the emergency law has been a central demand of reformists since protests broke out on March 15. The emergency law restricts many civil liberties, including public gatherings and freedom of movement, and allows the "arrest of anyone suspected of posing a threat to security." Around 220 people have been killed by security forces or plainclothes police since the start of the protest movement, according to the rights watchdog Amnesty International. Rights activists said protesters gathered in their hundreds in the centre of Homs on Wednesday calling for the downfall of the regime. One activist, Najati Tayyara, gave eight names of people he said died when security forces fired live rounds early Tuesday into a crowd of around 20,000 staging an overnight sit-in protest.

"A general strike and a day of mourning was observed" in Homs on Wednesday, Tayyara said.Despite the cabinet decision on the emergency law, more than 2,000 people defied the authorities and protested against Assad's 11-year regime in the northern coastal city of Banias late on Tuesday, witnesses said. And only hours later, the Syrian authorities reportedly arrested opposition figure Mahmud Issa in Homs, using powers granted to them under the state of emergency, in force since 1963.

 According to Amnesty International,  Assad's regime has blamed "armed criminal gangs" for deadly violence since pro-reform demonstrations erupted in mid-March across Syria, one of the Middle East's most autocratic states. But the latest overture by Assad's government has been roundly criticised as failing to go far enough. Amnesty International, which says the crackdown has cost 26 lives in recent days, cautioned in a statement that the "pledges ring hollow." The London-based rights watchdog called on Assad to "back up his pledge to introduce reforms with immediate, concrete action to end the continuing wave of killings of protesters by his security forces."

The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights and its branch in Syria, the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies, said the move to lift emergency rule "falls short of significant human rights reforms." While Britain and the United States have condemned the use of force and called for even broader reforms, Russia has voiced its "complete support" for the changes that have been announced so far.

In neighbouring Lebanon on Wednesday, the pro-Western camp denied accusations that local parties were funding and arming the anti-regime protesters in Syria. And authorities in northern Lebanon near the Syrian border slapped a ban on outdoor rallies for or against the ruling regime in Damascus.