Protesters calling for freedom gathered in capital Damascus and other areas around Syria as security forces ordered journalists to leave a southern city where a brutal weeklong siege on demonstrations killed dozens of people.
Al Jazeera's special correspondent, reporting from among the pro-reform demonstrators in the southern city of Daraa, 100 kilometres south of Damascus, said: "No one here is calling for a regime change".
"No one here is chanting slogans against the president Bashar al-Assad. The people here say they want freedom, they want reforms."