Syrian security forces kill dozens of protesters

Tens of thousands of people are taking part in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

By Tara Bahrampour,
WashPost
Saturday, April 23, 6:44 AM

BEIRUT — Syrians who took to the streets Friday after prayers knew they were defying threats from their president.

But they poured out anyway, tens of thousands of them, calling for his ouster a day after he lifted a set of despised emergency laws. And in towns and cities across the country, President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces answered with guns.

By late Friday, 81 people were confirmed dead, said Wissam Tarif, director of a Syrian human rights group. In at least 10 towns and cities, activists and witnesses said, government forces shot into crowds, beat protesters with batons and Kalashnikovs, and used tear gas against them.

It was the biggest single-day death toll in Syria’s six-week-old uprising, and it offered no sign that the Damascus government might give in to swelling demands for democratic change. Unlike the authoritarian governments in Tunisia and Egypt that fell quickly in this year’s Arab revolutions, the Syrian authorities appear to retain tight control over the army and police.

(More here.)