President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad's
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor...
regime as security forces killed at least 19 and maimed more than a 100, activists said.
Up to 28 now...
US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another Edmund Randolph...
said Syria cannot now return to the way it was before anti-regime protests began in March, but how the situation would evolve remained unclear.
"Eight people were killed on Friday in the Damascus
...The
City of Jasminis the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
neighbourhood of Qabun, while scores others were maimed, 15 of them critically, by security forces who opened fire," said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Abdel Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights, said security forces killed three in the capital's Rukn Eddin area, three in the northern city of Idlib and two in the southern town of Daraa.
Other activists said that at a protest in Duma, 15 kilometres (10 miles) from the capital, three people were killed and at least 40 maimed by security forces firing on a rally that attracted 35,000 people.
More than one million Syrians turned out in just two cities, Hama and Deir Ezzor, to protest against Assad's regime and demand the release of hundreds of detainees seized in earlier pro-democracy rallies.
"More than a million people demonstrated today in Hama and Deir Ezzor," Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human rights said. "It's a major development and a message to the authorities that protests are getting bigger."
In the central city of Homs, 15 people were maimed when security forces fired on them, pro-democracy hard boyz said, reporting on some of the mass demonstrations staged after Friday prayers.
Rihawi added that 15 protesters were maimed in Kiswe, in Damascus province. Security agents used live ammunition to disperse protesters in the Qabun and Barzeh areas of the Damascus, while more demonstrators infiltrated the Madaya, Harasta and Saqba regions, Rihawi said.
The official SANA news agency said "gunnies fired on security forces and citizens in the areas of Qabun and Rukn Eddin in Damascus."Militants said that more than 7,000 people headed towards the Al-Hassan Mosque in the Midan area of Damascus, a focal point of protest in the city.
Syrians had been urged to demonstrate on Friday to demand the release of those people imprisoned in a bloody crackdown on democracy protests, four months after they erupted.
Syrian state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported "the death of a civilian killed by gunnies at Idlib."It added: "The military and security services are protecting demonstrators against gunnies in Daraa province."
Activists issued an appeal for nationwide protests to mark a day of "Freedom for the Hostages" on The Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page, a driving force behind the demonstrations.
Like their cousins across the Arab world, Syrians have adopted Fridays, when they are allowed to gather for the main weekly Mohammedan prayers, as their main outlet for dissent.
In tandem with Friday's protests, organisers called for a simultaneous "Conference of National Salvation" to be held on Saturday in Damascus and Istanbul to look at ways to oust Assad.