chenxun

One committee was appointed to investigate deaths in Dara’a and Latakia, two cities where the government has cracked down on protesters, according to the state news agency.

 Syrian Human Rights Information Link, an activist organization, has documented the names of 103 people killed across the country since the protests began March 15, including at least 73 in Dara’a and 10 in Latakia. It was not clear if the number for Latakia included those killed Wednesday night.

The government also announced the

 creation of a committee to study lifting the emergency law imposed in 1963 and replacing it with legislation “that secures the preservation of the country’s security, the dignity of citizens and combating terrorism,” according to the state news agency.

Lifting the emergency law, which has been in place since 1963, has been a major demand of the protesters. Among its provisions, the law silences dissent and allows security forces to detain citizens without charge.

Activists expressed little faith that the

 government would expand political freedoms in any meaningful way. Mr. Ziadeh said he feared that replacing emergency law with antiterrorism laws would constitute only a cosmetic change. “They will put the same restrictions on basic rights into the terrorism law that they put into the emergency law,” he said. “The emergency law might be lifted but the state of emergency that governs every aspect of our lives will be the same."