Syrian president accepts cabinet's resignation

/ REUTERS - Tens of thousands of Syrians gather for a pro-government rally at the central bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accepted his government's resignation.

By Leila Fadel

CAIRO — President Bashar al-Assad accepted the resignations of his cabinet ministers on Tuesday as some protesters began demanding that he also leave, in the most serious threat to his rule since he assumed power a decade ago.

Gallery: Egypt- and Tunisia-inspired protests spread through Middle East, North Africa: Motivated by recent shows of political strength by neighbors in Egypt, demonstrators in the Middle East and North Africa are taking to the streets of many cities to rally for change.

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Graphic: Middle East and North Africa in turmoil

The action, reported on state TV, marks the latest concession by Assad since protesters forced a string of political promises from his government, including a pledge to lift a 48-year-old emergency law. On Saturday, Assad released hundreds of political prisoners and pulled back security forces from the southwestern city where Syria’s burgeoning unrest began earlier this month.

Along with those concessions, anti-government activists are calling on Assad to rescind limits on civil rights, including the right to free assembly.

As the resignations were announced, tens of thousands of pro-government demonstrators took to the streets of the capital, chanting, “The people want Bashar al-Assad,” in support of the president. Activists reached by phone and Internet said the government had closed its offices so that workers could attend the demonstration in downtown Damascus.

College students said that staff in their dormitories confiscated their identification cards and told the students they could retrieve them after they attended the rally, the activists said. Parents also reported that their children were told by schoolteachers to attend the rally.

The turmoil in Syria began in the southwestern Sunni town of Daraa after 15 children were arrested for spray-painting anti-government slogans on walls.

The 45-year-old president was expected to speak to the nation of 23 million people Tuesday for the first time since the unrest began.

In the past week, at least 61 people have been killed in swift, violent government crackdowns on protesters. The repression seems to have emboldened the hesitant movement. Demonstrators, who first asked for government reforms, are now seeking Assad’s ouster.

The Assad family has controlled Syria for four decades, crushing any opposition. Along with last week’s security crackdown, however, Assad, who took power in 2000, has added a new tactic to quell the unrest — trying to appease anti-government activists by means of concessions.

The dissent has spread through towns in western and southern Syria and to Damascus. But it is not comparable in scale or intensity to the turmoil in the Middle East countries of Libya, Egypt or Tunisia.

Foreign journalists’ access to Syria has been severely restricted.

Opposition members say talk is no longer enough to appease the protesters.

“The issue is not what Assad will say, it is what will he apply?” said Ammar Qurabi, who head Syria’s National Organization for Human Rights. “We are tired of all this talk that the Syrian people have heard from the government for 11 years.”