2011-03-29 Syrian government resigns, president Bashar al-Assad stays

There are many online reports again that say Syrian president Bashar al-Assad will address the country tomorrow, and that he will make an announcement "that will please the Syrian people". In the meantime, he has accepted the resignation of the Syrian government, the latest in a series of reforms this week which do not include the protesters' demands of an end to the 48 year old emergency law, a drastic reduction of domestic security powers, freedom for all political prisoners and a disclosure of the fate of tens of thousands of protesters who disappeared in the 1980's. The Syrian government do not possess much power, most still resides with Assad, his family, and the vicious and powerful security forces. The resigning premier has been appointed by Assad as caretaker prime minister and a new government is expected to be appointed by Assad within 24 hours.

Daraa and Lattakia are still having huge protests against the government, while in Damascus Al Jazeera is showing large crowds (variously described in the same article and embedded video as thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and "perhaps even millions") waving flags and posters in support of Assad. As reported by France24, schoolchildren and government workers were given time off to attend the pro Assad rally. Russia Today has a good video which shows first the huge pro-Assad rally in Damascus which all the major news media not yet evicted from the country were brought to watch, and second the very different and violent protests happening in other regions.

Protests in Daraa shown below. Silmya.org has compiled a list of the 100 martyrs they say have died so far in the Syrian protests. Human Rights Watch earlier reported at least 61 confirmed by them as being killed in these protests.