Syrians rally for Assad, president due to speak

Employees and members of unions controlled by Assad's Baath Party said they had been ordered to attend the rallies.

DAMASCUS: Tens of thousands of Syrians held pro-government rallies on Tuesday as President Bashar al-Assad was expected to address the nation after two weeks of pro-democracy protests in which at least 60 people have died.

Assad, who has been facing the gravest challenge to his 11-year rule after demonstrations in the south spread, could announce a lifting of Syria's decades-old emergency laws.

Protesters at first had restricted their demands to more freedom, but incensed by security forces' crackdown on them, especially in the southern city of Deraa where protests first erupted, they have been demanding the "downfall of the regime".

The calls echo those during the uprisings that toppled veteran leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and also have motivated the rebels fighting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Syrian state television showed people in the Syrian capital Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Hasaka, waving the national flag, pictures of Assad and chanting "God, Syria, Bashar".

"Breaking News: the conspiracy has failed" declared one banner, echoing government accusations that foreign elements and armed gangs were behind the unrest.

Employees and members of unions controlled by Assad's Baath Party, which has been in power for nearly 50 years, said they had been ordered to attend the rallies, where there was a heavy presence of security police.

All gatherings and demonstrations are banned in Syria, a country of 22 million, other than state-sponsored ones.

Fears of sectarian violence

More than two hundred protesters gathered in Deraa chanting for freedom and "God, Syria, and Freedom" and "O Hauran rise up in revolt", a reference to the plateau Deraa lies on.

The government has said Syria is the target of a project to sow sectarian strife.

"If things go south in Syria, blood-thirsty sectarian demons risk being unleashed, and the entire region could be consumed in an orgy of violence," wrote Patrick Seale, author of a book on Hafez al-Assad, on the Foreign Policy blog.

Bordered by Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Israel, Syria maintains a strong anti-Israeli position through its alliances with Shia regional heavyweight Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah, as well as Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas. It has also reasserted influence in smaller neighbour Lebanon.

Vice President Farouq al-Shara said on Monday the 45-year-old president would give a speech in the next 48 hours that would "assure the people".

Protesters want political prisoners freed, and to know the fate of tens of thousands who disappeared in the 1980s.