Syria, March 31: President Bashar Al Assad defied calls to lift a decades-old emergency law and said Syria was the target of a foreign conspiracy to stir up protests.
Speaking in public for the first time since the start of the unprecedented demonstrations, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world, Assad said he supported reform but offered no new commitment to change Syria’s rigid, one-party political system.
“Implementing reforms is not a fad. When it is just a reflection of a wave that the region is living, it is destructive,” Assad, making clear he would not concede to pressure from mass protests which toppled other Arab leaders.
Ending emergency law, the main tool for suppressing dissent since it was imposed after the 1963 coup that elevated Assad’s Baath Party to power, has been a central demand of protesters.
They also want political prisoners freed, and to know the fate of tens of thousands who disappeared in the 1980s.
“Syria today is being subjected to a big conspiracy, whose threads extend from countries near and far,” Assad said, without naming any countries.
Assad gave no timetable for other reforms he has mooted, including laws on political parties, media freedoms and fighting corruption. He said the priority was improving living standards in the country of 22 million, where many people struggle with rising prices, low salaries and lack of jobs.
“We can sometimes postpone (dealing with) suffering that emergency law may cause … But we cannot postpone the suffering of a child whose father does not have enough money to treat him,” he said in a speech frequently interrupted by applause.
“He focused on defiance. He is defying his people and defying the international community,” leading opposition figure Maamoun Al Homsi told Reuters by telephone from Canada.
Meanwhile, gunfire was heard in the Syrian port city of Latakia after Assad’s speech. “Gunfire was heard in the southern quarter of Sleibi but the source has not yet been identified,” Issam Khoury, a Latakia-based journalist, said.
City residents also reported a drive-by shooting at a sit-in, where protesters had raised banners reading: “No to strife, yes to peace and freedom.”
The report could not be independently confirmed.
An eyewitness, contacted by telephone, said security forces had opened fire to disperse demonstrators disappointed by Assad’s speech.
–Agencies–