Syrian president orders study on hated laws

[March 31, 2011]  DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria's president ordered Thursday that a legal committee be set up to study the possibility of abolishing the country's hated emergency laws that have been in place since 1963.

The announcement comes in the wake of an extraordinary protest movement in one of Mideast's most autocratic regimes, with thousands of Syrians calling for change -- including the end of the emergency laws, which give security forces a free hand to arrest people without charge.

The state-run news agency said the committee would complete its study by April 25.

Thursday's move appears to be an attempt by President Bashar Assad to show he will not be pressured to implement reform -- instead, he will make changes at his own pace. On Wednesday, he dashed expectations that he would announce sweeping reforms, blaming two weeks of popular fury that has gripped Syria on a foreign conspiracy.

Syrian TV said the ruling Baath Party's regional command formed the committee made up of legal experts to study legislation that would "guarantee the country's security and dignity of Syrians and combat terrorism."

"This would pave the way for lifting the state of emergency laws," it said, adding the committee would accomplish the study by April 25.

Assad on Tuesday also fired his Cabinet in an attempt to appease protesters, whose calls for change were touched off by the arrest of several teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on walls in the southern city of Daraa.

The protests spread to other parts of the country last week, and human rights groups say more than 60 people have been killed since March 18 as security forces cracked down on the demonstrations.

In his speech before Parliament Wednesday, his first public comments since Assad said Syria is being subjected to a "major conspiracy."

He made only a passing reference to the protesters' calls for change, saying he was in favor of reform, but acknowledged there have been delays. "The question is what reforms do we need," he said, without offering any specifics.

Social networking sites immediately exploded with activists calling on Syrians to take to the streets.

Within hours of Assad's speech, residents of the Mediterranean port city of Latakia said troops opened fire during a protest by about 100 people, although it was not immediately clear whether they were firing in the air or at the protesters. The residents asked that their names not be published for fear of reprisals.

Latakia, which has a potentially volatile mix of different religious groups, already has become a flashpoint for violence that could take on a dangerous sectarian tone in the coming days and weeks.

The anti-government protests and ensuing violence have brought Syria's sectarian tensions into the open for the first time in decades, a taboo topic because Syria has a Sunni majority ruled by minority Alawites, a branch of Shiite Islam.

Assad has placed his fellow Alawites into most positions of power in Syria. But he also has used increased economic freedom and prosperity to win the allegiance of the prosperous Sunni Muslim merchant classes, while punishing dissenters with arrest, imprisonment and physical abuse.

Assad, who inherited power 11 years ago from his father, appears to be following the same strategy of other autocratic leaders who scrambled to put down uprisings by offering minor concessions coupled with brutal crackdowns. The formula failed in Tunisia and Egypt, where citizens accepted nothing less than the ouster of the regime.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters in Washington Wednesday that Assad's speech "didn't really have much substance to it."

[Associated Press; By ZEINA KARAM]

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.