MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Syria lifts 50 year emergency rule but permission is needed for demonstrations

The Syrian authorities' arrest of a leftist opposition figure overnight suggests that a bill passed by the government to end emergency rule after 48 years will not halt repression, rights campaigners said.

The draft law was passed on Tuesday as a concession by President Bashar al-Assad in the face of increasingly determined mass protests against his authoritarian rule. More than 200 people have been killed, rights groups say.

The end of emergency rule was, however, coupled with new legislation requiring Syrians to obtain a permit from the state if they want to hold demonstrations. Defiant protests continued regardless, and three protesters were shot dead in the city of Homs on Tuesday, activists said.

A prominent free-thinker in the city, Mahmoud Issa, was taken from his house around midnight by members of Syria's feared political security division. Rights campaigners said at least 20 pro-democracy protesters had been shot dead by security forces in Homs in the past two days.

“Issa is a prominent former political prisoner. Arresting him hours after announcing a bill to lift emergency law is reprehensible,” said Rami Adelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, speaking from Britain.

“Lifting emergency law is long overdue, but there are a host of other laws that should be scrapped, such as those giving security forces immunity from prosecution, and giving powers to military courts to try civilians,” he added.

“Thousands of political prisoners arrested under these exceptional laws should be released,” Abdelrahman added.

Syria is involved in several Middle East conflicts. Any change at the top -- Assad, backed by his family and the security apparatus, is Syria's absolute ruler -- would ripple across the Arab world and affect Syria's ally Iran.

The leadership backs the Islamist movement Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah but seeks peace with Israel. Assad was largely rehabilitated in the West after years in isolation after the 2005 assassination in Beirut of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri