Tens of thousands of Syrians gathered on Sunday in Douma near Damascus to bury eight people killed during pro-reform protests, rights groups said, as a Facebook group drummed up week-long rallies in their honour.
This video posted on YouTube purports to show the funeral procession held in Douma on Sunday: SBS cannot verify its authenticity.
Low government profile Security forces kept a low profile in Douma on Sunday, residents and mourners told AFP, but they did check the identities of those entering the suburb north of Damascus as volunteers took on the task of directing traffic. On Facebook, meanwhile, there were calls for a "Week of the Martyrs" protest in Syria in honour of those killed in the security clampdown on pro-reform rallies that mobilised thousands on the Muslim day of rest and prayer. "The Week of the Martyrs will be a thorn on the regime's side," the organisers of Facebook group Syrian Revolution 2011 said, designating Tuesday as the first day of protests focused on coastal towns "far from the capital." The group also called for a boycott of cell phone companies on Wednesday, a rally against the ruling Baath party on Thursday outside its Damascus headquarters, and countrywide demonstrations on Friday. Assad on Sunday tasked Safar to form a new government, the state-run news agency SANA reported, in a fresh bid to quell pro-reform protests and after he came short of lifting emergency laws in place since 1963. Activists on Saturday said 46 people were detained by security forces in a wave of arrests that hit protest centres including Douma, the southern tribal town of Daraa and the northern industrial city of Homs. A Douma resident said 90 people who had been detained in a roundup by security forces were released late on Saturday and 15 were "still missing," while a human rights activist told AFP seven remained behind bars. "We counted them," said the resident. "Most of the people detained say it's really bad but are afraid to give details. They were not tortured but they are beaten before being detained." The authorities also freed Soheir Attasi, a human rights activist detained during a March 16 rally in Damascus calling for the release of political prisoners, a lawyer said.
