Syria's emergency law to end, says Assad

President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday the emergency law in force in Syria for nearly 50 years will be abolished within a week, and expressed his sadness at the deaths of protesters. "The juridical commission on the emergency law has prepared a series of proposals for new legislation, and these proposals will be submitted to the government, which will issue a new law within a week at the most," he said.
The emergency law, in force since 1963, imposes restrictions on public gatherings and movement, authorises the interrogation of any individual and the monitoring of private communications and imposes media censorship. In a televised address to the new cabinet recorded earlier, Assad also expressed his sorrow over the deaths of an estimated 200 people in a month of protests demanding greater freedoms.
"We are sad for all the people we have lost and all the people injured, and consider them all martyrs," he said in his address to a new government tasked with launching reforms. "The Syrian people are respectable. They love the regime and reject chaos," Assad said, and called for a national dialogue.
He also spoke of what he called the gulf "between citizens and the institutions of the state, a gulf that must quickly be filled. "Citizens need security and services, but also dignity. We want to engage in dialogue with everyone... the unions and national organisations." Assad also addressed the broad spectrum of complaints that have sparked countrywide protests for more than a month, including joblessness, corruption and a crisis in agriculture.
"Corruption is a threat to morality and to the country's potential for development," he said. On unemployment, which he acknowledged to be high even by Arab standards, he said that "when people feel the horizon is limited, they feel depression; and this depression can lead to despair." Assad added that the world economic crisis had made the role of the state "more important," emphasising the need to support the "small entrepreneur and not large business" and to "improve the connection of markets, not only between people but between cities."