Fresh protests shook Syria yesterday as thousands took to the streets a day after 11 people were killed by security forces amid a growing clamour for further democratic reforms, activists said.

Protests gripped the central city of Homs, the protest hub of Daraa in the south and Jisr al-Shoughour near the north-western city of Idleb, despite pledges by the President to lift a draconian emergency law.

Activists have said Bashar al-Assad’s vow on Saturday to lift within a week nearly five decades of emergency law is insufficient, with protesters also demanding the release of political prisoners and the end of the ruling Baath party’s grip over the state and society.

Tens of thousands of mourners marched in Homs yesterday a day after security forces fired live rounds to disperse demonstrators in the Bab Sba’a neighbourhood, killing at least seven people, activists said.

Tensions in the region have been exacerbated with the death on Sunday in the nearby town of Talbisseh of at least four people, killed when security forces opened fired on a funeral procession. More than 50 people were also wounded. A sea of mourners swamped Homs carrying the seven coffins shoulder-high above the crowds, some open, others covered with Syrian flags, witnesses said.

Many clapping their hands, mourners called for “the fall of the regime” and “freedom”, as they paid tribute to the “martyrs”, activists said. And a sit-in in the city centre of Homs swelled to more than 10,000 after the funerals, with people flowing into the rally from across the city, witnesses said.

Anger has whipped through Homs since the announcement on Saturday that a Muslim cleric arrested a week earlier had died in custody.

“The security services handed back the body of Sheikh Faraj Abu Mussa a week after he was arrested in perfectly good health as he was leaving the mosque,” an activist said. The official news agency Sana blamed an “armed criminal group” for the violence in Talbisseh, where it said a policeman was killed and 11 others wounded by gunfire. Five soldiers were also hurt.