Syria endorses law to allow political parties

Syria's government has endorsed a draft law that it says will allow the formation of political parties alongside President Bashar Assad's ruling Baath Party, part of a series of promised reforms that the opposition has dismissed as largely symbolic. The development came as security forces detained dozens of people in the capital Damascus and several other cities in search for anti-government protesters and regime opponents, activists said Monday.
The National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria said a seven-year-old child, a boxing champion and a writer were among those arrested. The multiparty bill, approved by the Cabinet late Sunday, follows other concessions Assad has made as part of his efforts to quell more than four months of protests against his regime.
He has coupled his pledges of reform with a deadly crackdown on protesters that activists say has killed at least 1,600 people. The revolt has only grown more defiant in the face of the government response, and protesters have shifted their demands from political change to the outright downfall of the regime.
The draft law, which still needs parliamentary approval, would allow for the establishment of any political party which is not based on religious or tribal lines, or discriminates due to ethnicity, gender or race, the state-run news agency said. Assad's ruling Baath Party, which calls for ``unity, freedom and socialism,' has held a monopoly over political life in Syria for decades. A key demand of the protest movement is the abolishment of Article 8 in the Syrian constitution, which states that the Baath Party is the leader of the state and society.
Lawmaker Mohammad Habash told The Associated Press on Monday that the bill still needs to be endorsed by parliament and will likely be presented for debate at the next session on August 7. He said the bill in itself was positive but that some articles of the constitution must be amended first, including article 8. But the concessions failed to sap the momentum of the protest movement, which dismissed them as either symbolic or far too late.
As a first step, the protesters are demanding an immediate end to the security crackdown and the release of thousands of people who have been detained in recent months. The government, however, has shown no signs of letting up in its efforts to crush the uprising. On Monday, security forces tightened their siege of neighbourhoods in central Syria's city of Homs, sending military reinforcements and cutting mobile and land lines in the Khaldieh and Bayada districts, activists said.