Perilous
Times
'Good Friday massacre' in Syria leaves at least 50 dead
Syria’s security forces stand accused of carrying out a “Good
Friday massacre” of more than 50 protesters on one of the
bloodiest days yet in the five-week uprising against President
Bashar al-Assad.
By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent 6:14PM BST 22 Apr
2011
The Telegraph UK
Yesterday, Mr Assad responded to growing popular pressure by
lifting Syria’s draconian 1962 emergency laws. But the president’s
apparently conciliatory gesture failed to signal a softening of
the regime’s determination to crush dissent.
Aross the country, protesters spilling out of mosques were met
with live ammunition, sometimes within minutes of Friday prayers
ending.
In Damascus, the capital, and towns and cities to the east, west
and south, every attempt to challenge the regime was met with the
same remorseless vengeance.
By dusk, there were fatalities reported from nine separate
demonstrations. Up to 54 people were killed, according to a Daily
Telegraph tally of reports by Syrian activists, witnesses and
doctors.
Even by the blood-soaked standards of the repression that has
characterised the Syrian uprising - at least 220 people have died
since protests first began on March 18th - this was killing on a
different order of magnitude.
Yesterday’s protests were billed as a major showdown between Mr
Assad and the ever-swelling ranks of his opponents.
The president presented his decision to lift Syria’s state of
emergency as a final offer to the demonstrators. It was a
concession, he said, that removed the last pretext for legitimate
protest; anyone who took to the streets after his magnanimous
gesture was a bandit or a rebel.
Yet tens of thousands were prepared to defy the president once
more, even though they were well aware that the security forces
had been given license to use unfettered force.
In stark contrast to the first protests in March, when slogans
were directed at not at the president but at his policies, those
who took to the streets  tore down posters of Mr Assad and
statues of his father Hafez, who rules Syria until his death in
2000.
Others demanded the resignation of the “Doctor”, as Mr Assad, a
London-trained ophthalmologist, is known, chanting: “The Syrian
people will not be subjugated.
Go away Doctor! We will trample on you and your murderous regime.”
Many did not get very far, however. In Azra, a town in the
southern province of Deraa, 3,000 protesters marching on the main
square came under sustained fire.
Doctors in the town said 10 corpses had been brought to the
hospital’s tiny morgue and that other bodies remained on the
streets.
The scene was repeated in suburbs of Damascus and nearby towns,
where loyalist gunmen joined the police in confronting the
protesters.
A four-year-old girl was reportedly among the victims, shot in the
head by a sniper according to opposition activists.
“What today proves beyond question is that Syria is the most
repressive regime in the Middle East and Assad is the worst
dictator,” one activist said. “The people marched peacefully and
they were shot in their scores. It is a massacre, a Good Friday
Massacre, and a war crime.”