Syria experiences 'Good Friday massacre' - Telegraph.co.uk

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."