Thousands of Syrians on streets to ’support’ Assad as cabinet resign

Mtoday news/ Mail

Syria, March 29: Supporters of Syria’s President Bashar Assad poured into the streets today to show their support as it emerged he has accepted the resignation of his cabinet.

The beleaguered president, who rules the country with an iron fist, has been forced into a string of reforms, including lifting a nearly 50-year state of emergency.

At least 61 people have been killed since the protests exploded on March 18 and led to a crackdown by security forces. Many of those on the streets today are thought to be motivated by fear.

Encouraged: School children were given the day off and bank employees and other workers were given two hours off to attend the demonstrations

 

Show of strength: Supporters of Syria’s President Bashar Assad poured into the streets today to show their support as it emerged he has accepted the resignation of his cabinet

Assad, whose family has controlled Syria for four decades and has a history of brutally crushing dissent, is trying to calm the growing fury with a string of concessions.

He is expected to address the nation in the next 24 hours to announce he is lifting the emergency law and moving to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms.

Syria’s independent Al-Watan newspaper said the Cabinet was expected to resign during its weekly meeting Tuesday, a move that would be viewed as another concession.

However, the resignations will not affect Assad, who holds the lion’s share of power in the authoritarian regime.




Showing their support: Many in Syria who see Assad as a young, dynamic leader and credit him for opening up the economy were shocked by the violence of recent weeks and came to express genuine support

The violence has brought sectarian tensions in Syria out in the open for the first time in decades, a taboo topic here because the country 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.

Many of the pro-regime demonstrators emphasized national unity Tuesday.

’Sectarianism was never an issue before, this is a conspiracy targeting Syria,’ said Jinane Adra, a 36-year-old Syrian who came from Saudi Arabia to express support for Assad.

 

Under pressure: The president of 11 years, one of the most anti-Western leaders in the Middle East, is wavering between cracking down and compromising in the face of protests that began on March 18

But the country has been trying to emerge from years of international isolation. The U.S. recently has reached out to Syria in the hopes of drawing it away from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas - although the effort has not yielded much.

The government-sanctioned rallies Tuesday dubbed ’loyalty to the nation march’ brought hundreds of thousands into the streets in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Hasakeh in the north and the
central cities of Hama and Homs.

School children were given the day off and bank employees and other workers were given two hours off to attend the demonstrations.

Still, many in Syria who see Assad as a young, dynamic leader and credit him for opening up the economy were shocked by the violence and came to express genuine support.



Change in the air: In spite of the show of support, Assad is expected to address the nation in the next 24 hours to announce he is lifting the emergency law and moving to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms

’The people want Bashar Assad!’ chanted protesters in a central Damascus square.

Men, women and children gathered in front of a huge picture of Assad freshly put up on the Central Bank building.

’No to sectarianism and no to civil strife,’ read one placard.

When unrest roiling the Middle East hit Syria, it was a dramatic turn for Assad, a British-trained eye doctor who inherited power from his father in 2000 after three decades of iron-fisted rule.

In January, he said his country is immune to such unrest because he is in tune with his people’s needs.