REUTERS CANADA: DAMASCUS - Thousands of mourners at a funeral for a Syrian killed in anti-government protests burned a ruling Baath party building and a police station on Saturday as authorities freed 260 prisoners in a bid to placate reformists.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was facing the deepest crisis of his 11 years in power after security forces fired on protesters on Friday, adding to a death toll that rights groups have said now numbers in the dozens.
Mosques across Deraa announced the names of "martyrs" whose funerals would be held in the southern city and on Saturday hundreds were gathering in the main square chanting for freedom.
Three bare-chested young men climbed onto the rubble of a statue of late President Hafez al-Assad, which protesters pulled down on Friday in a scene that recalled the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Iraq in 2003 by U.S. troops.
A witness said they had cardboard signs reading "the people want the downfall of the regime," a refrain heard in uprisings across the Arab world from Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen. » | Reporting by a Reuters correspondent in Deraa, Yara Bayoumy in Beirut and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Peter Millership, Editing by Sonya Hepinstall | Saturday, March 26, 2011
