Syrian protesters cry for regime change, despite 'reforms'

Source: Cnn

(CNN) -- Syrian opposition voices spoke out Monday against a proposed law that would allow for new political parties, calling it little more than a publicity stunt.

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"The Syrian regime is just easing international pressure to implement political and social reforms in Syria. The regime is simply constitutionalizing dictatorship through this new law that lacks basic elements for political parties to be formed freely," said Hassan Chalabi, a member of the Syrian National Salvage Congress.

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He added that the parties cannot be active until they are legalized by a committee formed by the minister of interior, a judge and three other members appointed by the president. This stipulation, Al Bounni said, makes it impossible for opposition parties to establish a presence, despite the new law.

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Citing "reliable activists and witnesses," it estimated that security forces have arrested more than 2,000 anti-government protesters, medical professionals caring for wounded protesters and people alleged to have given information to international news media and human rights organizations.



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Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/07/25/syria.unrest/

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Assad needs to step down ... that is the only first step towards reform that the Syrian people will accept.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/world/middleeast/26syria.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Syria’s Cabinet has passed a draft law allowing the formation of political parties to work along the ruling Baath party of President Bashar al-Assad, a step in a series of promised changes that anti-government protesters have dismissed as superficial and useless.

The draft law, approved late Sunday night but not yet finalized, followed several other steps that the government has portrayed as concessions in response to the four-month-old uprising in Syria.

Activists and protesters said the draft law, like previous steps, was largely symbolic and had come too late anyway.

“Our struggle with the authorities is not over laws. It is a struggle over freedoms,” said Louay Hussein, a prominent opposition figure in Damascus. “A new law is not going to stop the government from violating our personal and political freedoms. So that law does not really have any significance.”