But despite the pledge and large public pay rises, thousands of Syrians turned out to chant “freedom, revolution” in the center of the southern city of Daraa, the focal point of protests against 48 years of Baath Party rule.
“The Syrian people do not bow,” they also chanted around the main Omari mosque, shortly after security forces evacuated the building which they stormed on Wednesday, killing six people.
Syrian opposition figures said the promises did not meet the aspirations of the people and were similar to those repeated at regular Baath Party conferences, where committees would be formed to study reforms that then never saw the light of day.
“The leadership is trying to absorb the rage of the streets. We want to see reform on the ground,” said a protester in the southern city of Daraa.
A hospital official said at least 37 people had been killed in the southern city of Daraa on Wednesday when security forces opened fire on demonstrators inspired by uprisings across the Arab world that have shaken authoritarian leaders.
While an aide said Assad would study a possible end to 48 years of emergency rule, a human rights group said a leading pro-democracy activist, Mazen Darwish, had been arrested.
Announcing promises for reform in a manner that would have seemed almost unimaginable three months ago in Syria, Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told a news conference the president had not himself ordered his forces to fire on protesters:
“I was a witness to the instructions of His Excellency that live ammunition should not be fired, even if the police, security forces or officers of the status were being killed.”
The Baath Party, which has ruled Syria for half a century, would draft laws to provide for media freedoms and allow other political movements.
The party will also study drafting of a law for political parties “to be presented for public debate,” would strive above all to raise living standards by increasing the salaries of public workers and look at “ending with great urgency the emergency law, along with issuing legislation that assures the security of the nation and its citizens.”
Authorities released all those arrested in the Daraa region since the protests erupted, an official statement said but it did not give a figure. The statement also said Assad ordered a 20 to 30 percent salary raise for public employees across Syria.
“When you first hear it you think they’re making major concessions, but when you look at it you realize there’s not a lot there besides the salary boost,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at Oklahoma University. “You understand the regime is in a very difficult spot and they’re flustered.”
Security forces opened fire on hundreds of youths on the outskirts of Daraa on Wednesday, witnesses said, after nearly a week of protests in which seven civilians had already died.
The main hospital in Daraa, in southern Syria near the Jordanian border, had received the bodies of at least 37 protesters killed on Wednesday, a hospital official said. That brings the number killed to at least 44 in a week of protests.
Around 20,000 people marched on Thursday in the funerals for nine of those killed, chanting freedom slogans and denying official accounts that infiltrators and “armed gangs” were behind the killings and violence in Daraa.
“Traitors do not kill their own people,” they chanted. “God, Syria, Freedom. The blood of martyrs is not spilt in vain!“
As Syrian soldiers armed with automatic rifles roamed the streets of the southern city, residents emptied shops of basic goods and said they feared Assad’s government was intent on crushing the revolt by force.
Assad, a close ally of Iran, a key player in neighboring Lebanon and supporter of militant groups opposed to Israel, had dismissed demands for reform in Syria, a country of 20 million.
