Tens of thousands of Syrians gathered on Sunday in Douma near Damascus to bury eight people killed during pro-reform protests, as a Facebook group drummed up week-long rallies in their honour.
The funerals came as President Bashar al-Assad asked former agriculture minister Adel Safar to form a new government and as communications networks in the protest-hit country failed for several hours.
"The town is in mourning, all the shops are shut," Muntaha al-Atrash, spokeswoman of the Syrian rights group Sawasiya (Equal), told AFP, adding that "at least 20,000" came to the Douma funerals which passed off peacefully.
"Protests will continue. The people will not stay silent any longer because the barrier of fear has been broken," she said.
"Eight people were buried in Daraa," Mazen Darwish, director of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression which had its headquarters shut down by the authorities in 2009, told AFP.
"There are three other people who were killed Friday but they are from neighbouring villages Arabnin and Isbinah," he said.
Activists blamed the deaths after Friday weekly prayers on a crackdown by security forces, although government officials pinned responsibility on an "armed group" which opened fire from rooftops on both protesters and police.
"He who kills his own people is a traitor" and "where are the gangs?" people chanted after mourners marched from the cemetery through the city centre before settling down for a sit-in outside the town hall.
Security forces kept a low profile in Douma on Sunday, residents and mourners told AFP, but they did check the identities of those entering the suburb north of Damascus as volunteers took on the task of directing traffic.
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