Security forces on Friday violently dispersed thousands of people protesting in a Damascus suburb and in the northern towns of Aleppo and Deir Ezzor, the head of a Syrian human rights group told AFP.
Security forces waded in with batons to disperse the protest in the north Damascus district of Rokn-eddin, Abdul Karim Rihawi, head of the Syrian Human Rights League, told AFP by telephone.
"We have received information that the Syrian security forces fired in the air to disperse around 5,000 protesters who gathered in Deir Ezzor after the Friday prayers," he added.
In Aleppo, security forces used truncheons to disperse hundreds of protesters gathered in the Saleheddine district, Rihawi said, while in the northeastern town of
Deribassi, some 400 people protested against the regime by singing the national anthem and waving the Syrian flag. Rihawi said there was no police intervention in Deribassi.
Thousands gathered in Qamlishi, also in the northeast of the country and in the northern, Kurdish-majority town of Amuda, Rihawi said.
Earlier on Friday, security forces killed at least three people in the town of Dael in the flashpoint southern province of Daraa, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group said.
Pro-democracy activists in Syria called for Friday to be another day of protest and reached out to the army, urging soldiers to join the protest movement against the regime.
Protesters have called for demonstrations against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime to be held every Friday after weekly prayers since the uprising started on March 15, using different different slogans each time.
Human rights groups say that at least 1,000 people have been killed and more than 10,000 arrested since the protests began.
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