Syrian President Lifts Emergency Rule

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday issued decrees ending nearly five decades of emergency law, abolishing state security courts and allowing citizens to protest peacefully, state television reported.

The announcements made successively in news flashes on state television said Assad was ending the emergency law imposed in the country since 1963 as well as the state security courts.

A third decree said citizens would be granted the right to peacefully demonstrate and noted that this is one of the basic human rights guaranteed by the Syrian constitution. The decree issued by Assad would "regulate" that right to demonstrate.

The emergency law restricts many civil liberties, including public gatherings and freedom of movement, and allows the "arrest of anyone suspected of posing a threat to security."

The state security court exists outside the ordinary judicial system and usually prosecutes people considered to challenge the authority of the government, and its verdicts cannot be appealed.

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