The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
March 31, 2011

Assad Orders Review of Emergency Law, Blames "Foreign Conspiracy" for Unrest 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------



Syrian President Bashar Assad has reportedly ordered the formation of a
government panel to review lifting a decades-old emergency law. The law
has been among the key targets of a recent wave of protests that drew a
government crackdown leaving over 60 dead. The review comes one day
after Assad delivered a defiant address that made no concessions to the
protesters' demands. Speaking before Syrian lawmakers, Assad blamed the
unrest in Syria on a foreign conspiracy and said protesters were at
fault for the deaths.

Syrian President Bashar Assad: "It is clear that Syria today is being
subjected to a big conspiracy. The conspiracy is linked to close and
distant countries, and it has some internal links. There were
instructions not to harm any Syrian citizen, but when events happen in
the streets and the dialogue takes place in the streets instead of legal
institutions, that leads to chaos in which the (protesters) reaction
prevails and the wrong view becomes the dominant view. That leads to
bloodshed and this is what happened and you all know it."



.