Australian Syrians have expressed vehement support for President Bashar al-Assad, slamming accusations that he is killing anti-regime protesters as media lies.
"We are here to support the president of Syria, President Bashar al-Assad ... he is the best president," Rosa Najem said.
"People believe that he is a dictator for many reasons, really," Ms Najem - who helped organise the rally - told SBS.
"People believe he is killing his people and that they must vote for him, but I lived in Syria and my family did go and vote, so it's not what people are saying it is," she said.
Rally organisers said 25,000 people turned out in Sydney's inner west on Sunday, while a spokesman for Marrickville police who was at the event estimated the turnout at 500.
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RALLIES 'NOT REPORTED'
A Syrian flag perhaps 50 metres long snaked through Marrickville's Gough Whitlam park, to the beating of drums and chants in Arabic of 'Syria, Allah and Bashar."
The flag mirrored that used in a similar protest outside Damascus earlier this month.
Mr Ghazal said around 9.5 million people (or almost half the population of Syria) had attended the rally, whereas news agencies quoted that 'thousands' had demonstrated.
A YouTube video from the rally outside Damascus was sent to SBS in response to the news agencies' lower figures.
Al-Assad modernised Syria and brought democracy to the country, attendees at the Sydney rally said. The fight against anti-regime protesters was 'a fight for the country,' they said.
Around 500 Syrian soldiers have died in the fight against armed protesters, they said. News agencies put that figure at 341, last week, with 1,310 protesters reported dead.
"They (the soldiers) died fighting for their country," Amanda Ahmad, 17, told SBS.
Organiser Abraham Ghazal said the rally was aimed at overturning misconceptions that Australian Syrians do not support the president, slamming the media for failing to report on a huge pro-Assad rally in Damascus last week.
AUSTRALIAN ALLEGIANCE
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd wanted Australians to believe that the Syrian community did not support al-Assad, said Mariam Mohamad, another rally attendee.
"But here we are, there are thousands of us - millions like us," she said.
Mr Ghazal added that news agencies including Al Jazeera had frequently been 'caught out' fabricating videos of violence that had actually taken place in Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey, and distributing them as events in Syria.
Mr Ghazal sent numerous clips from Facebook groups and from Syrian television that he said provided evidence of the falsifications.
He said Australian media was intent on portraying al-Assad in a negative light due to Australia's allegiance to the US.
"The Syrian political role in the region is not appreciated by the Americans and their allies," he said.
"They want them to pull out of the Palestinian involvement," he added.
America's involvement in Iraq was another reason to pressure al-Assad to step down, Mr Ghazal said.
More than six million Iraqis had fled Iraq for Syria due to US military activities there, he said.
