At least four people were killed and up to 50 others wounded when Syrian security forces opened fire on a funeral procession in Talbisseh near the central town of Homs late on Sunday, witnesses said.
The development followed an announcement that President Bashar al-Assad would lift 48-years of emergency rule. But Mr. Assad’s speech last Saturday has apparently failed to quell fury on the streets.
Security forces "opened fire on a crowd of thousands of people" in Homs at the funeral of a man killed in the area the previous day, witnesses told Agence-France Press by telephone.
In the country’s major port, Latakia, meanwhile, around 10,000 people took to the streets after the funeral of a protester killed on Friday, a rights activist told AFP. President Assad and his clan hail from Latakia.
Regime supporters also broke up two rallies in southern Syria, wounding five people.
The official news agency SANA reported: "One policeman was killed and 11 others were wounded by fire from an armed criminal group in Talbisseh."
The report added: "Three armed criminals were killed and 15 others were injured these include five soldiers."
"The criminals opened fire from buildings close to an army post near the bridge where the army had been sent to apprehend these gangs," the report said.
Sunday’s protests followed a televised address by President Assad last Saturday promising to end emergency rule within a week. Emergency rule has been in force since 1963 when the Baath party took power.
Chants at protests on Sunday, Syria’s Independence Day holiday, were more hostile toward President Assad than at previous marches. It is a sign that a promise to lift the country’s hated emergency law had failed to appease the public, according to Reuters.
"Freedom! Free Syria! Bashar get out!" people chanted. Their slogans were audible over a telephone call made by one of the mourners at the funeral.
The 46-year-old Mr. Assad, who has ruled Syria since the death of his father President Hafez al-Assad in 2000, told his cabinet to replace the draconian emergency laws within seven days. He did not address protesters’ demands to curb Syria’s powerful security apparatus and dismantle the polity’s authoritarian system.
Opposition figures say they believe new laws that might replace the emergency rule are likely to retain severe curbs on political freedom.
Protests against President Assad’s rule began in Deraa more than a month ago after teenagers were arrested for scrawling pro-democracy graffiti. Demonstrations have spread across large parts of this country of 23 million people, inspired by uprisings in other parts of the Arab world since early 2011.
The death toll, which rights groups put at more than 200 people, continues to rise. President Assad said Syria is the target of a conspiracy and authorities blame the violence on armed gangs and "infiltrators" supplied with weapons from Lebanon and Iraq.
Reuters quoted the head of Germany’s intelligence service on Sunday as saying that the Assad dynasty’s history of crushing dissent meant a North Africa-style uprising was unlikely.
"Remember that the father of the current president murdered as many as 30,000 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, a few decades back," Ernst Uhrlau told Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper, referring to President Hafez al-Assad’s crushing of an uprising led by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982.