DAMASCUS: More than a million protesters flooded Syrian streets on Friday demanding an end to President Bashar al-Assad's regime as security forces killed at least 19 and wounded more than a 100, activists said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 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 neighbourhood of Qabun, while scores others were wounded, 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 wounded 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 wounded when security forces fired on them, pro-democracy militants said, reporting on some of the mass demonstrations staged after Friday prayers.
Rihawi added that 15 protesters were wounded 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 “armed men 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 reported “the death of a civilian killed by armed men at Idlib.”It added: “The military and security services are protecting demonstrators against armed men 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 Muslim 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.
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